New York Comic Con 2024: Interview with Emily Andras, Creator and Writer of Wynonna Earp: Tales From Purgatory

Popular Western/Supernatural Drama Wynonna Earp returns in audio drama form on Audible, with Wynonna Earp: Tales From Purgatory, which sees the show’s original creator and writer Emily Andras returning alongside original cast members Melanie Scrofano, Tim Rozon, and Katherine Barrell. Here, creator Emily Andras talks about the show returning as an audio drama!

Q: What made you want to come back to the series as an Audible original?

EMILY ANDRAS: I wanted that sweet sweet Amazon Prime membership taken care of. Guess what? They still haven’t, I’m paying, what the hell guys? No. I mean, I was really lucky Audible came to us. I think, and we’ve been off the air for three years, but our show, you just cannot kill with fires. 

So it’s been the most cursed and blessed show ever, which is what a wonderful thing. Here’s my theory about it. I think post COVID more than ever, we see fragmented audiences, right?  We see like 500 plus scripted shows, and the truth is, we have the benefit of this loud, passionate, extremely good looking audience, fandom, the Earpers, and I think being able to deliver that to an audible or a two on a silver platter is more unusual than ever, right? A baked in audience that’s gonna show up no matter what? Audible really saw kind of the value in this community that wanted more stories. And we were pretty intrigued about telling them in this format, although intimidated to it first, for sure.

Q: What’s been the biggest challenge about adapting it for a different medium?

EMILY ANDRAS: It was really intimidating. I will be honest as the writer, you should always be a little bit terrified, to be honest, or you don’t care enough. That’s my secret. Look, the secret is TV is literally show don’t tell, and the audio stories are literally tell, don’t show, right? First of all, we didn’t have the clutch of this beautiful cast, which was a major problem. 

Second of all, I wasn’t really sure how to denote action in a way that wasn’t just someone being like, oh, they’re stomping around with a werewolf, or whatever. But when I kind of realized how freeing this medium was gonna be, it became a whole other ballgame. What I mean by that is no budget constraints, right? Like we really got to tell stories in the audio medium that we would never be able to do on the show. Like on a plane, on a train in the Old West, someone may or may not become a Godzilla like giant. You’ll have to stay tuned to find out.  So that became really freeing and also a chance to kind of reward the fans with stories maybe that we didn’t get a chance to pick up on in the series or take a C character and give them an A story. Just do things. It almost felt like fan fiction in the best possible way. 

Q: Were you able to be involved with the recording sessions for this at all?

EMILY ANDRAS: I did. I got to go. It was amazing. One thing Audible did, which made all the difference was they flew in everybody to make sure they were all in the same room at the same time, which I think people were, yeah, it made such a huge difference. Like, again, being able to look into your scene partner’s eyes versus being, you know, someone in Sydney, Australia and someone’s in Berlin, it’s a little more hard. I think that took some of the curse off it for the actors.  They were quite intimidated, that being able to look the same way they would on the show and see each other and play off each other, and emote off one another, you can really hear the difference, I think, in the recording that they’re together and it feels very emotional and real. so that was wonderful. I know what I’m good at, but it’s definitely not my medium, watching the director kind of of have fun and improv. Just his sense of scale and what he could add to it with the soundscape was incredible.

About Wynonna Earp: Tales From Purgatory

Saddle up and join Wynonna Earp on an immersive new audio adventure in the gritty supernatural world of Purgatory. This Audible Original invites you deeper into the weird west to follow Wynonna Earp (Melanie Scrofano), as she embarks on her craziest adventure yet: riding off into the sunset with her soulmate, Doc Holliday (Tim Rozon) – yes…that Doc Holliday. Brace yourself for more wise-cracking demon hunters, earth-shattering revelations, and all the genre-blending action you’ve come to expect from the cult hit TV series. With Waverly (Dom Provost-Chalkley), Sheriff Nicole Haught (Katherine Barrell), Jeremy (Varun Saranga), Mercedes (Dani Kind) and more, these latest tales from Purgatory will navigate a happily-ever-after that’s much more complicated than they expected! Don’t miss out on this essential new installment for fans craving another dose of badass demon-fighting mayhem. Available in Dolby Atmos on Audible.