Paul Rudd to Lead Audible's Scripted Comedy Podcast ESCAPE FROM VIRTUAL ISLAND

Audible Inc., the world's largest producer and provider of original spoken-word entertainment and audiobooks, today announced a new scripted Audible Original comedy series, Escape from Virtual Island, written by John Lutz, best known for his work on "Saturday Night Live," "Late Night with Seth Meyers" and "30 Rock" and produced by Broadway Video Enterprises. Golden Globe-nominated actor Paul Rudd leads an all-star ensemble cast of comedic talent including Jack McBrayer, Paula Pell, Amber Ruffin, Scott Adsit, Jane Krakowski, Seth Meyers, Jason Sudeikis, Kenan Thompson, Olivia Wilde and Henry Winkler. The audio series will debut April 2, 2020 exclusively on Audible. Escape from Virtual Island is executive produced by Broadway Video's Britta von Schoeler and produced by Austin Breslow. Will Rogers and Ian Stearns are executive producers for Audible.

Derek Ambrose (Rudd) runs an island resort in 2038 where the wealthy come to live out their wildest fantasies in virtual reality. With the help of his assistant Beasley (McBrayer), lead computer scientist Faith (Ruffin), and head of security Ramona (Pell), the island has been running smoothly since Derek inherited it from his mother. When a high-profile guest suddenly goes missing inside a computer simulation, Derek, Faith, Beasley, and Ramona form a SEARCH PARTY to retrieve him. Bouncing between VR environments, the team soon realizes that the computer has become self-aware and is preventing them from escaping back to the real world. Absurd adventures, including virtual visits to a British Royal Navy ship, a Wild West saloon, and a Central Park rom-com, come to life for listeners through a captivating narrative and high-caliber sound design that evokes TV for your ears.

"This astonishing group of comedy all-stars took a hilarious script and turned it into a wildly imaginative and brilliant series," said David Blum, editor-in-chief of Audible Originals. "When we kicked off our collaboration with Broadway Video in 2017, we did so with the vision of creating distinctive new Audible Originals with top talent in the business; we've been thrilled with the results and we can't wait for our listeners to join these familiar voices on a wild comedy adventure series like no other."

"I enjoy creating characters and telling a story through them," said John Lutz, creator and writer of Escape from Virtual Island. "This Audible format gave me the perfect opportunity to do so. Writing specifically for audio excited and challenged me to come up with unconventional ways to tell a story completely through dialogue and sound. I wrote this story with this cast specifically in mind, and they elevated everything I wrote because they are among the funniest performers alive."

Following the success of Heads Will Roll starring Kate McKinnon and Emily Lynne, featuring Tim Gunn, Meryl Streep and Peter Dinklage, 64th Man, starring John Cena and Anna Chlumsky, and Ana Gasteyer and Maya Rudolph's Holiday Greetings from Sugar and Booze, Escape from Virtual Island is the fourth audio-only scripted original comedy series to come from the Audible and Broadway Video collaboration. The series joins a robust slate of Audible Originals, exclusive audio entertainment created by celebrated storytellers from the worlds of theater, journalism, comedy, literature and more. Audible Originals offer powerful performances created for listeners by award-winning actors, writers and comedians, spanning every genre and length.

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