Myha’la Herrold & Benjamin Norris To Star In YA Scripted Podcast Series ‘Academy’

Peter White
·3 min read

EXCLUSIVE: Industry star Myha’la Herrold and Never Have I Ever star Benjamin Norris are entering the world of scripted podcasts.

The pair are to star in YA podcast series Academy, which has been described as having a “tinge of Euphoria” from Wondery and At Will Media. The series will launch exclusively and ad-free on Amazon Music and Wondery+ on July 20.

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The series is a coming-of-age audio drama set at Bishop Gray Academy, a world of high-stakes and cut-throat competition. It follows Ava Richards (Herrold), a scholarship student who transfers to Bishop Gray, one of the most elite and competitive boarding schools in America. As Ava tries to find her place in this high-pressure environment, she soon crosses paths with an underground society known as The Night of the Wolf, which caters to the school’s wealthiest students and enforces strict secrecy. With trust in short supply, Ava must navigate a dangerous and alluring world where friendships will be tested, romances will bloom, and ambitions cut short.

Norris voices Jesse, Ava’s star-crossed love interest. Stefanie Scott plays Amber, Ava’s frenemy and a bona fide overachiever in every possible way, JJ Niemann is Noah, Ava’s cunning and conflicted handler in The Night of the Wolf, Victoria Grace is Charlotte, her bubbly co-worker at the school coffee shop, Sibel Damar is Layla, Ava’s razor-sharp stoner roommate with her sights on a new girlfriend and Robbie Kay is Caden, the ladies’ man homecoming king who’s more fragile than he seems.

The idea is to move the YA genre into the audio world, building on the success of series such as Never Have I Ever, XO Kitty and The Summer I Turned Pretty. It will blend high school TV series, erotic scenes, “bitingly current” social and class commentary and comedy.

The theme song is by indie artist Windser, who is an Amazon Music Breakthrough Artist, and the song will drop as a single alongside the show.

Academy is a Wondery and At Will Media production. It is created by Anderson Cook, Christina Friel, Will Malnati, and Connor Wright. It is executive produced by Erin O’Flaherty and Marshall Lewy for Wondery, and Malnati for At Will Media. It is written by Cook and Sidney Butler.

Herrold, who previously starred in A24 horror comedy Bodies Bodies Bodies, is coming off the back of an episode of Black Mirror and is also starring in two feature films set to be released this year: Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money about the GameStop short squeeze, and Leave The World Behind, a psychological thriller from Sam Esmail that also stars Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali and Ethan Hawke.

Herrold is repped by UTA and 11:11 Entertainment and Norris is repped by UTA and Authentic Talent + Literary Management.

Listen to the trailer below:

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