With the rise of Radio came a new style of fiction: the Audio Play. Although Radio Drama mostly died with the rise of Television, the Audio Play did not; it continued unabated on records and later on CDs, and most recently, on Podcast.
The thing that distinguishes an Audio Play from a Dramatic Reading or stand-up comedy is that the listener is generally supposed to think that they are listening to actual events. There may be a narrator, but individual characters usually have their own distinct voices, and foley work (audio special effects) provides a sense of actually being there.
Some artists like Stan Freberg successfully transitioned from radio to other Audio Play formats, like the record album. Others, like Cheech & Chong and The Firesign Theatre actually started out creating Audio Plays on vinyl, after the death of radio. In Britain, Big Finish makes a popular line of Audio Play derivatives of other works, like Doctor Who. In Japan, the Drama CD, a form of Audio Play, is still popular today.
Note: Examples that fit under Radio or Podcast should appear there instead. This is an index of Audio Plays that don't fit under either subcategory. (Although not all radio shows or podcasts are actually Audio Plays, so this is not a proper supertrope.) Adaptations should only appear here if the adaptation has its own page.
Audio plays with pages on this wiki:
- 36 Questions — The Podcast Musical
- Adam Sandler — Sandler's four out of five albums consist of pure genius comedy, more so than some of his movies.
- Alien Abduction Role Play
- Are You Alice?
- Attack On Heroes Resurgence
- Banal Fantasy
- Batman Breakdown
- Batman: The Audio Adventures
- BBV Productions' Audio Adventures in Time and Space
- Below Board
- Bert and I...
- Big Finish Doctor Who
- Biohazard 2 The Little Runaway Sherry
- Blake's 7
- Chilling Tales For Dark Nights
- Choose Me
- Chris Rock — Rock's three out of five albums have great comedy, which are equally as excellent as his stand-up.
- The Chronicles Of Oz
- Diabolik Lovers — Started out as a series of Drama CDs (and continues to do so) before being made into Visual Novels.
- The Confessions of Dorian Gray
- Doctor Who Audio Visuals
- Doctor Whooves Adventures
- Doctor Whooves and Assistant
- Doctor Whooves Equestrian Travels
- The Dolls of New Albion
- Le Donjon de Naheulbeuk
- The Elysium Project
- Epithet Erased: Prison of Plastic — While an audio adaptation, the audioplay, which has the voice cast of the web series reprise their roles, released before the eBook and paperback versions
- Evangelion: After the End
- Exit Tunes Presents ACTORS — Primarily a Vocaloid cover franchise, but each album release also includes drama track/s; the franchise has also released a couple of full-fledged drama CDs.
- The Free Doctors For The NHS
- The Further Adventures of Nick Danger
- Gallifrey
- Ghost Rider: The Audio Drama
- Halo 3: ODST isn't one, but the "Sadie's Story" subplot contained in the audio logs is.
- Halo Infinite: Memory Agent
- Haunt The Johnsons
- The Heroic Tale of Heroically Heroic Heroes
- Horrible Histories
- Hypnosis Mic
- Impact Winter
- Independence Day UK
- I Started Out as a Child
- I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus
- Jack Flanders
- Kingdom Paf
- KPNYRadio
- Los Cochinos
- The Mage and the Knight
- Mashin Hero Wataru Series
- Miss Helen's Weird West Cabaret
- Monty Python
- The Morgue Files
- The New Albion Guide To Analogue Consciousness
- The New Albion Radio Hour
- The New Century Multiverse
- Omaha!
- Ome Henk
- Organization LIX
- Our Honeymoon
- Paradox Live
- Passage to Moauv
- The Pizza Cats Pantomime
- Playing Gods
- Reflets d'Acide
- Revelation 'F'
- Reverse Transmission
- Ruffled
- Rush Hour
- Saint Beast
- Samurai Senshi
- The Sandman (2020)
- Slayers: A Buffyverse Story
- A Slenderman Musical
- The Sojourn
- Sonic and Tails R
- Sonic and the Death Cheese
- Sonic Destruction
- Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America
- Starboard
- Star Trek: Excelsior
- Star Wars: Doctor Aphra
- Star Wars Dooku: Jedi Lost
- Star Wars - Tempest Runner
- Star Wars: The Battle of Jedha
- Stray Ami
- StrikerS Sound Stage X
- Superhuman Sharehouse Story Charisma
- Super Stylish Doctors Story
- Tales of a Junk Town Pony Peddler
- This Duckburg Life
- Touch Tone Terrorists
- Trampy Movies
- Transmission Folklore
- Tsukipro
- The Twelfth Doctor Fan Audios
- Uncivil Outlaw
- The Unfinished Spelling Errors of Bolkien
- The Unused and Majin Show
- A Voice from the Dark
- Warhammer 40,000
- Wasurenagusa
- We're Alive
- Wizard People, Dear Reader
- Yandere Apartment
- Yandere Heaven
- Yandere no Onna no Ko
- Yet Another Partridge In A Pear Tree
- The Zeta Family
