In the Spring 2025 semester, Ringling College students from a variety of majors had the opportunity to explore a completely non-visual medium: audio drama.
Taught by Liberal Arts faculty Kevin Cooley, Audio Storytelling and Podcasting combines creative writing, sound design, and podcasting—lessons he’s personally experienced while making his own fictional podcast, The Backrooms: Silverfish.
“The class is an absolute blast to teach,” said Cooley, who offered this initial course to showcase audio drama as an accessible storytelling medium capable of reaching large audiences, while also fielding course feedback from the students themselves.
“I wanted to share what I’ve learned with Ringling students, and help them thrive in this strange, wonderful medium that somehow feels as digital and futuristic as it does antique and vintage.”
Part of the appeal, both for Cooley and his students, is the way audio drama empowers independent creators to make potentially lucrative and widely popular projects on a relatively low budget.
“There’s no guarantee of profit, of course,” said Cooley. “The bulk of audio dramas produced are independent ones, and you never know what is going to flop and what is going to bring in big ad revenue or a wave of Patreon support. But some audio drama creators are certainly making it happen—especially with the help of distributor networks like Bloody FM, Fable & Folly, and Rusty Quill. And with their varied skills in media editing, image creation, and storytelling, Ringling students are in a particularly good position to make and market audio drama.”
Many students were struck by the sheer volume and variety of fictional podcasts currently being produced. “I learned about a lot of different creators and broadened my understanding of the audio drama field,” said Mikayla Query ’27, Computer Animation. “What surprised me was how varied these creations were and how heartfelt they each were in their different ways. One day you’re in space and the next you’re in Ireland!”
Sarah Lewis ’27, Computer Animation, said she had a longstanding interest in podcasts, but she “almost always thought of the medium as a series of hidden gems rather than an active industry.”
And after actively creating their own audio drama podcasts in the Creative Writing class, the students were enlightened and energized by the experience. “It’s a little funny. There’s not a lot to be surprised with,” said Olly Giangrandi ’25, Illustration. “You talk about podcasts, work with audio, you voice act or have other people voice act, and you give each other feedback on scripts. Knowing this, however, is different from doing it.”
“As storytellers, we tend to talk a lot about a character’s ‘voice,’ how they think and feel, what defines them,” said Lewis. “There’s something unique about how literal this idea of ‘voice’ becomes while working in audio fiction that is especially intimate as a listener. Getting to hear my characters come to life was something I found exciting and powerful.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the students found lessons in audio drama that they could then apply to their own chosen media and specialties. “This class has affected how I write stories now,” said Giangrandi. “When you only work with audio, you have to learn to play with its strengths. I’m studying to be a graphic novelist, and despite it being a purely visual medium, sometimes thinking about what it’d sound like in a podcast brings new ideas. It’s easy to just say that this is a ‘Podcast class,’ but it’s also a class that challenges the students’ storytelling abilities in a unique way.”
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