Table Read
- Episodes
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- weekly
- Latest episode
- Oct 29, 2026
About the podcast
Cinema for your ears. Performed by Hollywood’s best.
Step inside the studio where Hollywood’s top actors bring award-winning screenplays to life... complete with a full cinematic score, immersive sound design, and the energy of a live performance.
Each episode is a front-row seat to a one-of-a-kind production: 20-plus working actors, world-class scripts from acclaimed writers, and film-quality sound crafted by Emmy-winning producers. It’s not just a podcast... it’s a movie you hear.
Recent guests include Mark Hamill, Rosario Dawson, Ty Burrell, Joe Mantegna, Fred Armisen, and more.
Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell Manifest Media.
#1 Fiction Podcast | 2025 Webby, Shorty, and Signal Winner | Cinema for your ears.
Episodes 124
Featuring: Filmspotting Podcast | Fall Movie Preview and The Social Reckoning | #1085
With the fall film festival season (mostly) in the rearview and release dates set through the end of the year, Adam and Josh hold a Fall Movie Preview Draft that sees them largely ignoring obvious picks like …
Show notes
With the fall film festival season (mostly) in the rearview and release dates set through the end of the year, Adam and Josh hold a Fall Movie Preview Draft that sees them largely ignoring obvious picks like Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three in favor of battling over some of the most intriguing indies still to come. Plus, a review of Aaron Sorkin's The Social Reckoning and Massacre Theatre.
This episode is presented by Regal Unlimited, the all-you-can-watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. Use code FILMSPOT26 to take 15% off.
(Timecodes will not be precise with ads.)
Intro (00:00:00-00:02:25)
‘26 Fall Preview Draft (00:02:26-0:25:19)
Filmspotting Family (0:25:20-00:31:25)
Preview Draft, cont. (00:31:26-1:02:41)
The Social Reckoning (1:02:42-01:30:58)
Massacre Theatre (01:30:59-01:36:46)
Credits / New Releases (01:36:47-01:44:01)
Notes:
-Find the Show: Filmspotting Podcast
-Yes, for some reason James Caan appeared on a Fall Preview cast list for “Cliff Booth” along with his son. No, it didn’t occur to Adam that he was dead. (He is.)
-”The Family Guy” has the famous “It insists upon itself” joke – not “The Simpsons.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYAi5aI_NPc
-Refocus Film Festival
https://refocusfilmfestival.org/
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KILLER CARGO - Act Three
🎧 KILLER CARGO — Act Three | Written by Heather Foster Christmas Eve. Branson, Missouri. One billionaire with a God complex. One alien with an insatiable appetite. One private jet that really, really should …
Show notes
🎧 KILLER CARGO — Act Three | Written by Heather Foster
Christmas Eve. Branson, Missouri. One billionaire with a God complex. One alien with an insatiable appetite. One private jet that really, really should have stayed on the ground.
Just when flight attendant Anita Fitzgerald and her insufferable copilot, Kevin Powers, think they've survived the worst Christmas Eve in aviation history, their billionaire boss, Daria Jagoda, arrives with armed reinforcements, a billion-dollar plan, and absolutely no intention of admitting she might have made a mistake.
Turns out the monster isn't a mistake. It's an investment.
Daria is convinced her murderous little science project will save humanity. Unfortunately, humanity keeps getting eaten, Kevin is barely holding himself together, and Anita is discovering that the only thing more dangerous than an extraterrestrial killing machine is a billionaire who believes her own inspirational bullshit.
Now the creature is growing, the body count is climbing, and the only way to stop the nightmare might be to get back on the very plane that started it.
KILLER CARGO reaches its gloriously unhinged conclusion with more carnage, more spectacularly bad decisions, and one flight attendant who has officially had enough of everyone's shit.
Buckle up. This is going to be one hell of a landing.
Featuring Ashley Bell as Anita Fitzgerald, Darin Toonder as Kevin Powers, Shaan Sharma as Captain Charles Song, Jade Tailor as Daria Jagoda, Charles Halford as Cliff Krantz, Ed You as Idris Bowman, Matt Curtin as Arnie Heim, and Sarah Phillips as Madge, with Tim Friedlander narrating.
Act Three of Three.
Written by Heather Foster.
Produced by Table Read Podcast and Manifest Media Productions, LLC.
Executive Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
KILLER CARGO - Act Two
🎧 KILLER CARGO — Act Two | Written by Heather Foster Christmas Eve. Branson, Missouri. One deserted airport. One forty-foot Christmas tree. One passenger who was never supposed to get off the plane. Flight …
Show notes
🎧 KILLER CARGO — Act Two | Written by Heather Foster
Christmas Eve. Branson, Missouri. One deserted airport. One forty-foot Christmas tree. One passenger who was never supposed to get off the plane.
Flight attendant Anita Fitzgerald and her insufferable copilot, Kevin Powers, have somehow survived the flight from hell. The jet is on the ground, the cabin door is shut, and whatever crawled out of that mysterious cargo pod is safely locked inside.
Or so they think.
While Kevin self-medicates with stolen whiskey and a Santa hat, Anita waits for their billionaire boss to arrive with help. Meanwhile, a foul-mouthed cleaning woman is having a spectacularly bad night, the Christmas decorations are about to become a serious liability, and something very hungry has discovered the joys of airport travel.
Turns out surviving the flight was the easy part.
KILLER CARGO is back with more mayhem, more questionable decisions, and a rapidly growing alien with absolutely no respect for personal space. The terminal is closed, the body count is rising, and the only thing standing between humanity and a very unpleasant Christmas morning might be two people who can barely stand each other.
Featuring Ashley Bell as Anita Fitzgerald, Darin Toonder as Kevin Powers, Shaan Sharma as Captain Charles Song, Jade Tailor as Daria Jagoda, Charles Halford as Cliff Krantz, Ed You as Idris Bowman, Matt Curtin as Arnie Heim, and Sarah Phillips as Madge, with Tim Friedlander narrating.
Act Two of Three.
Written by Heather Foster.
Produced by Table Read Podcast and Manifest Media Productions, LLC.
Executive Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
KILLER CARGO - Act 1
🎧 KILLER CARGO | Act One | Written by Heather Foster Christmas Eve. Springfield, Missouri. One luxury jet. One secret shipment. One spectacularly bad idea. For flight attendant Anita Fitzgerald, the night is …
Show notes
🎧 KILLER CARGO | Act One | Written by Heather Foster
Christmas Eve. Springfield, Missouri. One luxury jet. One secret shipment. One spectacularly bad idea.
For flight attendant Anita Fitzgerald, the night is already complicated. She's sleeping with a married captain, dodging the advances of an insufferable copilot, and trying to survive another holiday in the service of the obscenely wealthy.
Then three nervous men board with a six-foot, frosted-white container. Nobody will say what's inside. Nobody wants to be near it.
And somewhere over Missouri, something starts moving.
KILLER CARGO is a wickedly funny, gloriously twisted sci-fi horror ride where the seats are leather, the liquor is top-shelf, and turbulence is the least of anyone's problems.
Featuring Ashley Bell as Anita Fitzgerald, Darin Toonder as Kevin Powers, Shaan Sharma as Captain Charles Song, Jade Tailor as Daria Jagoda, Charles Halford as Cliff Krantz, Ed You as Idris Bowman, Matt Curtin as Arnie Heim, and Sarah Phillips as Madge, with Tim Friedlander narrating.
Act One of Three.
Written by Heather Foster.
Produced by Table Read Podcast and Manifest Media Productions, LLC.
Executive Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
QUESTA - Act 3
🎧 QUESTA Act 3 | by Victor Bumbalo Chelsea, 1991. The truth catches up. Father James comes looking for answers. Paul finally gives him one. He killed Will. But the priest tells him not to confess to Lori and …
Show notes
🎧 QUESTA Act 3 | by Victor Bumbalo
Chelsea, 1991. The truth catches up.
Father James comes looking for answers. Paul finally gives him one. He killed Will. But the priest tells him not to confess to Lori and not to go to the police. Let her keep believing her son was loved.
Paul says goodbye to the woman whose life he destroyed without ever telling her why.
Then Daniel steps out of the shadows.
The witness who saw everything that night tells Paul he lied to the police on purpose. He gave them the wrong face. He protected him. And now he tells Paul the one thing Paul never expected to hear from anyone again.
He loves him.
With nowhere left to hide and nothing left to go back to, Paul decides to leave New York for a tiny town in New Mexico where his family was happy once.
Questa.
QUESTA is a devastating, lyrical, morally serious story about grief, faith, and forgiveness. Monster's Ball meets Manchester by the Sea.
Featuring John Milhiser (Saturday Night Live), Oscar nominee Bruce Davison (Longtime Companion, X-Men), Maury Morgan (This Is Us, Richard Jewell), Anthony Holiday, Ashley Platz (Yellowstone), Bruce Nozick (Weeds, All the Way), Matt Bradford Sullivan (New Amsterdam, Juilliard), Darin Toonder (Paradise), Harriet Sansom Harris (Frasier, Phantom Thread), Rob Fitzgerald (American Crime Story), Kiel Kennedy (Robot Chicken, Superstore), Brendan Bradley (Resident Evil Village, Timeless), with Meeghan Holaway narrating.
Act 3 of 3
Produced by Table Read Podcast and Manifest Media Productions, LLC.
Executive Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
QUESTA - Act 2
🎧 QUESTA Act 2 | by Victor Bumbalo Chelsea, 1991. Weeks after the alley. Paul thought he could stop. He can't. He's following the mother now. Crying in front of her at a coffee shop while she comforts him, not …
Show notes
🎧 QUESTA Act 2 | by Victor Bumbalo
Chelsea, 1991. Weeks after the alley.
Paul thought he could stop. He can't. He's following the mother now. Crying in front of her at a coffee shop while she comforts him, not knowing the man at her table is the man who killed her son.
The witness who lied for him is watching Paul now, learning his name, standing across the street from his door.
And in a confessional at St. Anthony's, the mother breaks down on the priest she's been sleeping with and tells him God sent her a stranger as a punishment. She doesn't know the stranger has already punished her once.
QUESTA is a devastating, lyrical, morally serious story about grief, faith, and forgiveness. Monster's Ball meets Manchester by the Sea.
Featuring John Milhiser (Saturday Night Live), Oscar nominee Bruce Davison (Longtime Companion, X-Men), Maury Morgan (This Is Us, Richard Jewell), Anthony Holiday, Ashley Platz (Yellowstone), Bruce Nozick (Weeds, All the Way), Matt Bradford Sullivan (New Amsterdam, Juilliard), Darin Toonder (Paradise), Harriet Sansom Harris (Frasier, Phantom Thread), Rob Fitzgerald (American Crime Story), Kiel Kennedy (Robot Chicken, Superstore), Brendan Bradley (Resident Evil Village, Timeless), with Meeghan Holaway narrating.
Act 2 of 3
Produced by Table Read Podcast and Manifest Media Productions, LLC.
Executive Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
QUESTA - Act 1
🎧 QUESTA Act 1 — by Victor Bumbalo Chelsea, 1991. An hour after the rain. A grieving widower kills a stranger in an alley behind a gay bar. He runs to his sister. She hides the bloody clothes. He tries to …
Show notes
🎧 QUESTA Act 1 — by Victor Bumbalo
Chelsea, 1991. An hour after the rain.
A grieving widower kills a stranger in an alley behind a gay bar. He runs to his sister. She hides the bloody clothes. He tries to disappear into his own life.
He can't.
The dead boy has a mother. A hairdresser in the Village. A priest she's been sleeping with. A homeless witness in the shadows who tells the police the wrong face on purpose. And a killer who cannot stop thinking about the boy he left in the alley.
QUESTA is a devastating, lyrical, morally serious story about grief, faith, and forgiveness. Monster's Ball meets Manchester by the Sea.
Featuring John Milhiser (Saturday Night Live), Oscar nominee Bruce Davison (Longtime Companion, X-Men), Maury Morgan (This Is Us, Richard Jewell), Anthony Holiday, Ashley Platz (Yellowstone), Bruce Nozick (Weeds, All the Way), Matt Bradford Sullivan (New Amsterdam, Juilliard), Darin Toonder (Paradise), Harriet Sansom Harris (Frasier, Phantom Thread), Rob Fitzgerald (American Crime Story), Kiel Kennedy (Robot Chicken, Superstore), Brendan Bradley (Resident Evil Village, Timeless), with Meeghan Holaway narrating.
Act 1 of 3
Produced by Table Read Podcast and Manifest Media Productions, LLC.
Executive Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
SuburbaKnight - Act 3
SUBURBAKNIGHT: Act Three Walter Knope has spent most of his life avoiding confrontation. That is about to become difficult. Walter, Samantha and Bobby Joe cross the street armed with a sword, a crossbow, a …
Show notes
SUBURBAKNIGHT: Act Three
Walter Knope has spent most of his life avoiding confrontation.
That is about to become difficult.
Walter, Samantha and Bobby Joe cross the street armed with a sword, a crossbow, a mace, a revolver and one deeply impractical suit of medieval armor.
Richard is waiting.
So is the rest of the neighborhood.
Inside Richard's house they discover the party has evolved into something considerably less HOA-approved. Music. Neon. Blood. An orgy full of succubi. Richard sitting above it all like Satan's sexiest homeowners association president.
Samantha asks where her daughter is.
Then shoots Richard through the eye with a crossbow.
It barely slows him down.
Written by Nick Bannister, SUBURBAKNIGHT reaches its gloriously unhinged conclusion as Walter's fight to save his family becomes a full-scale supernatural war over everything he thought he had already lost.
Richard separates them.
Walter gets beaten nearly unconscious. Samantha is pulled into a seductive nightmare built from everything she thinks she wants. And Bobby Joe does what any legendary demon hunter would do when confronted with actual demons.
He runs.
Unfortunately, Richard isn't finished with him either.
Bobby Joe finds himself inside the greatest fantasy of his life: back on the set of Terror Vision, surrounded by beautiful women telling him he's brilliant.
Even Bobby Joe eventually realizes something is wrong.
When the illusion breaks, he finds Mia.
Or at least something wearing Mia.
One conveniently placed antique mirror later, Bobby Joe finally discovers that some of his monster-movie bullshit may actually be useful.
For perhaps the first time in his life, Bobby Joe Williams earns the title:
Demon Hunter.
Mia is safe.
Her parents aren't.
So Bobby Joe locks her in his van and goes back inside.
Walter and Bobby Joe reunite, fight their way through Richard's newly demonic neighbors and discover something hidden beneath the perfect suburban house.
A passageway.
An underground chamber.
And portraits proving Richard has been doing this for centuries.
At the end of the tunnel, Walter finds Samantha.
Richard has already gotten to her.
Now Walter has to do something harder than fighting a demon.
He has to remind his wife why she loved him in the first place.
College. Their first night together. Bringing Mia home. Losing his father. Twenty years of marriage, mistakes, resentment, forgiveness and everything that somehow survived underneath it.
For once, Walter gets the words right.
And Richard discovers that a disappointing middle-aged husband with an antique sword, a pissed-off wife and a washed-up horror host can be surprisingly difficult to kill.
What follows involves swords, guns, fire, a full-size demon, one extremely unfortunate anatomical injury and Bobby Joe's panel van.
Because sometimes saving your marriage takes work.
Sometimes it takes therapy.
And sometimes it takes blowing up an incubus.
Starring Darin Toonder, Jim O'Heir, Jade Tailor, Jack Daniel, Rob Fitzgerald, Logan Laurel, Emily Brolin, Ashley Platz, and Zeke Alton.
Produced by Table Read Podcast and Manifest Media Productions, LLC.
Executive Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
SuburbaKnight - Act 2
SUBURBAKNIGHT: Act Two Walter Knope has finally discovered the one thing worse than suspecting your new neighbor is a sex demon. Being right. Inside Richard's immaculate house, Walter gets the confirmation he …
Show notes
SUBURBAKNIGHT: Act Two
Walter Knope has finally discovered the one thing worse than suspecting your new neighbor is a sex demon.
Being right.
Inside Richard's immaculate house, Walter gets the confirmation he was looking for. The Maitlands are dead. Richard isn't human. And he isn't just interested in Samantha.
He wants everything Walter has.
Walter tries to warn Sam. It goes badly.
What starts as an argument about Richard quickly becomes an argument about money, sex, failure, jealousy and every other thing a married couple has been politely not saying out loud. Sam packs a bag. Walter, terrified Richard will get to her, practically helps her leave.
Written by Nick Bannister, SUBURBAKNIGHT is a wicked suburban horror-comedy about marriage, masculinity and what happens when your midlife crisis actually grows horns.
Walter needs someone who understands monsters.
Enter Bobby Joe Williams.
Local horror host. Full-time drunk. Part-time monster expert. Possibly the least reassuring person you could want standing between your family and eternal damnation.
Bobby Joe confirms the bad news. Richard is an incubus. He feeds on souls, controls his victims through desire and, unfortunately, appears to be immortal.
Meanwhile, Richard has already started remaking the neighborhood.
Walter goes looking for Andy and instead finds him dead in the bathtub, his wife Alli transformed into something considerably less neighborly. Walter barely escapes with his life.
Then Samantha comes home.
Richard is waiting.
This time, Sam sees him too.
When Richard finally drops the charm and shows them what he really is, he offers Walter everything he ever wanted. Money. Freedom. A fresh start.
All he wants in return is Samantha.
Walter says no.
Then Mia introduces Richard's face to a medieval mace.
For a moment, it feels like the Knopes may actually have this thing under control.
Then Richard takes their daughter.
Now Walter and Sam are done running. They need Mia back. They need help.
Unfortunately, the closest thing they have to a professional is Bobby Joe Williams in boxer shorts drinking margarita straight from a blender pitcher.
So they do what any responsible parents would do.
They raid the failed antique business.
Crossbow. Mace. Axe. Sword. Armor.
Walter's junk has finally found a purpose.
And across the street, Richard is waiting.
Starring Darin Toonder, Jim O'Heir, Jade Tailor, Jack Daniel, Rob Fitzgerald, Logan Laurel, Emily Brolin, Ashley Platz, and Zeke Alton.
Produced by Table Read Podcast and Manifest Media Productions, LLC.
Executive Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
SuburbaKnight Act 1
SUBURBAKNIGHT: Act One Walter Knope is having a bad week. His antique store is bankrupt. The bank has locked him out. His house is now filled with everything he couldn't sell. His teenage daughter thinks he's …
Show notes
SUBURBAKNIGHT: Act One
Walter Knope is having a bad week.
His antique store is bankrupt. The bank has locked him out. His house is now filled with everything he couldn't sell. His teenage daughter thinks he's embarrassing, his marriage has seen better days, and Walter is beginning to suspect middle age may just be a long series of humiliations ending in death.
Then Richard Sarandon moves in across the street.
Richard is rich, handsome, charming and spectacularly confident. The neighborhood women can't stop looking at him. The husbands barely notice. Walter notices everything.
Especially the two body bags carried out of Richard's house in the middle of the night.
Then Walter sees Richard do something no human being should be able to do.
Written by Nick Bannister, SUBURBAKNIGHT is a wicked suburban horror-comedy about marriage, jealousy, masculinity and the nightmare of discovering that the impossibly perfect man next door may actually be a monster.
Walter calls the police. They find nothing. Richard smiles. Walter looks insane.
Then comes the neighborhood party. Pool. Booze. Barbecue. Husbands watching football. Wives watching Richard.
With help from Andy, his beer-bellied neighbor and resident horror-movie expert, Walter finally puts a name to what moved in across the street.
An incubus.
A demon that seduces women and feeds on their life force.
Now Richard knows Walter is onto him. Walter knows Richard wants Samantha. And the fight Walter thought was about his pride, his marriage and his rapidly collapsing life is about to become something much worse.
Luckily, Walter's house is currently filled with swords, crossbows, armor and medieval weapons nobody wanted to buy.
Maybe the antique business wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Starring Darin Toonder, Jim O'Heir, Jade Tailor, Jack Daniel, Rob Fitzgerald, Logan Laurel, Emily Brolin, Ashley Platz, and Zeke Alton.
Produced by Table Read Podcast and Manifest Media Productions, LLC.
Executive Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Rooms Of Experience - Act 3
Rooms of Experience, Act 3 By Steffany Sommers Starring Patty McCormack as Ada Wells and Dan Lauria as DA Harvey Davis The trial begins. Detective Curtis takes the stand. Gina tells the jury about the woman who …
Show notes
Rooms of Experience, Act 3
By Steffany Sommers
Starring Patty McCormack as Ada Wells
and Dan Lauria as DA Harvey Davis
The trial begins.
Detective Curtis takes the stand.
Gina tells the jury about the woman who spent sixty-five years caring for her son.
Alexis puts Ada on the stand.
Ada does not ask for forgiveness.
She asks them to understand.
Dana answers with the law.
Alexis answers with lived experience.
An expert insists Teddy could have adapted to a new home.
Ada insists they never knew her son.
Then the case goes to the jury.
But Dana’s real judgment comes somewhere else.
The blue envelopes.
The hospital.
The daughter she left behind.
Dana finally tells Ada the truth.
Her baby was born with Down syndrome.
Dana walked out of the hospital.
She never went back.
And she prosecuted Ada because she needed to believe that leaving her own child had been the right choice.
Ada does not condemn her.
She reminds Dana that not every choice is permanent.
Then she asks the question Dana has avoided for seven years.
What is her daughter’s name?
Maddie.
Before the jury can deliver its verdict, Ada dies quietly in her garden.
In the hollowed-out place where Teddy used to lie.
The case is dismissed.
But the question remains.
At Ada’s funeral, Alexis gives Dana one final letter.
Dana opens it.
She finds Christopher.
She finds Maddie.
And for the first time since that day at the hospital, Dana moves toward her daughter instead of away.
By the end of Act Three, the law never delivers a verdict.
Dana makes a different choice.
Starring Academy Award nominee Patty McCormack (The Bad Seed) as Ada Wells
with Dan Lauria (The Wonder Years) as DA Harvey Davis
Craig Parker (The Lord of the Rings) as Detective Curtis
Nicholas Gonzalez (The Good Doctor) as Carter
Nora Zehetner (Heroes, Everwood) as Rebecca
Alyshia Ochse as Dana Jeffries
Candice Coke as Alexis Martinez
Eileen Grubba as Gina Gordon
Alain Uy as Ethan
and narrated by Sarah Elmaleh
Table Read is executive produced by Jack Levy, Mark Knell, and Shaan Sharma. A Manifest Media production.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Rooms Of Experience - Act 2
Rooms of Experience, Act 2 By Steffany Sommers Starring Patty McCormack as Ada Wells and Dan Lauria as DA Harvey Davis Dana tries to outrun the case. Literally. But Ada Wells keeps following her home. At …
Show notes
Rooms of Experience, Act 2
By Steffany Sommers
Starring Patty McCormack as Ada Wells
and Dan Lauria as DA Harvey Davis
Dana tries to outrun the case.
Literally.
But Ada Wells keeps following her home.
At Teddy’s funeral, Ada collapses.
Alexis asks for mercy.
Dana refuses.
Harvey warns her not to go soft.
The medical examiner confirms it was homicide.
Then reveals Ada could have hidden it.
No visible trauma.
No obvious cause of death.
No reason to test for helium.
But Ada left everything in plain sight.
Detective Curtis admits she never tried to escape responsibility.
Gina cares for Ada as her health begins to fail.
Ethan offers Dana a life built on trust.
And the blue envelopes hidden inside her desk keep demanding the truth.
Then, at Rebecca’s birthday party, Dana is handed a baby.
A little girl named Molly reaches for her.
A child with Down syndrome.
Molly touches Dana’s face.
And something buried begins to surface.
The prosecutor who insists there is always a choice can no longer avoid the choice she made.
By the end of Act Two, Ada Wells is not the only mother being judged.
Starring Academy Award nominee Patty McCormack (The Bad Seed) as Ada Wells
with Dan Lauria (The Wonder Years) as DA Harvey Davis
Craig Parker (The Lord of the Rings) as Detective Curtis
Nicholas Gonzalez (The Good Doctor) as Carter
Nora Zehetner (Heroes, Everwood) as Rebecca
Alyshia Ochse as Dana Jeffries
Candice Coke as Alexis Martinez
Eileen Grubba as Gina Gordon
Alain Uy as Ethan
and narrated by Sarah Elmaleh
Table Read is executive produced by Jack Levy, Mark Knell, and Shaan Sharma. A Manifest Media production.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Rooms of Experience - Act 1
Rooms of Experience, Act 1 By Steffany Sommers Starring Patty McCormack as Ada Wells and Dan Lauria as DA Harvey Davis The call comes in at night. An elderly woman. A dead son. A tank of helium left in plain …
Show notes
Rooms of Experience, Act 1
By Steffany Sommers
Starring Patty McCormack as Ada Wells
and Dan Lauria as DA Harvey Davis
The call comes in at night.
An elderly woman.
A dead son.
A tank of helium left in plain sight.
Ada Wells doesn’t deny it.
She wanted his last day to be peaceful.
Enter Dana Jeffries, razor-sharp, undefeated, and hungry to prove herself.
Her boss, Harvey Davis, assigns the case for one reason: optics.
Defense attorney Alexis Martinez pushes back hard.
Detective Curtis starts questioning his own conclusions.
Gina Gordon protects Ada like family.
Carter becomes another pressure point inside the machine.
Rebecca is caught in the ripple effect.
Then Alexis shows Dana the home movies.
The real story.
The years no one saw.
The cost no one counted.
By the end of Act One, Dana walks out of Ada’s house shaken.
No longer sure the law and justice are the same thing.
Starring Academy Award nominee Patty McCormack (The Bad Seed) as Ada Wells
with Dan Lauria (The Wonder Years) as DA Harvey Davis
Craig Parker (The Lord of the Rings) as Detective Curtis
Nicholas Gonzalez (The Good Doctor) as Carter
Nora Zehetner (Heroes, Everwood) as Rebecca
Alyshia Ochse as Dana Jeffries
Candice Coke as Alexis Martinez
Eileen Grubba as Gina Gordon
Alain Uy as Ethan
and narrated by Sarah Elmaleh
Table Read is executive produced by Jack Levy, Mark Knell, and Shaan Sharma. A Manifest Media production.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
RECALL Act 3
RECALL: Act Three By the time RECALL reaches Act Three, Miami Military Academy is no longer pretending it can survive. The school is still marching, still saluting, still shining brass and barking orders into …
Show notes
RECALL: Act Three
By the time RECALL reaches Act Three, Miami Military Academy is no longer pretending it can survive. The school is still marching, still saluting, still shining brass and barking orders into the Florida heat, but the center is gone. Colonel Barnes is dying. Commander Patterson knows it. Sally knows it. And the boys, even when they are laughing too hard to say it out loud, can feel the whole place slipping into history.
Written by Academy Award nominee Bruce Davison, and once optioned and held by the great Carroll O’Connor with eyes on a Pacino lead,, RECALL is a funny, savage, deeply human coming-of-age drama about abandoned boys, broken fathers, old soldiers, Cuban exiles, secret weapons, and the terrible bargain countries make when they ask the young to carry the sins of the old.
Act Three begins with the last quiet hours before everything breaks. Lishinsky and Sally steal a small piece of freedom on the water, drifting toward Captain Kidd’s Island, talking about California, escape, fathers, graves, and the strange fantasy that two damaged kids might simply sail away from all of it. But nobody really gets away from Miami Military Academy. Not yet.
Inside Barnes’ house, Patterson sits beside a dying friend and is handed the thing no soldier wants: responsibility without rescue. Barnes tells him the Army is calling in its chips. The school, the land, the boys, the munitions, the whole dream is coming apart. Patterson rages because he knows what the place is, and what it has been. A broken institution, yes. A madhouse, absolutely. But also the only home some of these boys have ever had.
Then the machinery starts moving.
The Army arrives. The Cuban officials arrive. The inspection becomes theater. A live round falls where it should not. The old bunkers by the bay are suddenly more important than the boys standing in formation. The parade takes them through Miami and into the Dade County Fair, where the whole strange, glorious organism of “A” Company explodes into one last carnival of cigars, sheep, majorettes, busted noses, bad decisions, and Patterson turning, for one mad instant, into the hero the boys still need him to be.
But the comedy cannot hold the line forever.
Colonel Barnes is gone. The flag drops to half-mast. The Razor Fiend is finally revealed. Lindquist, the feral boy from the mango trees, becomes a cadet, a savior, and maybe the strangest proof that the academy was never only a school. It was a place that took in the lost and gave them a uniform because it had no better language for love.
Slouch and Bebop reach the end of pretending. Bebop is called home by a country that no longer exists the way he remembers it. Slouch follows because friendship, for him, is the only oath that ever meant anything. The Cuban exiles come in the night. Patterson tries to stop them. History steps over him.
Sally leaves for California. Lishinsky stays behind with the ache of first love and the knowledge that some people are not meant to be held. Patterson sits with his ghosts. The boys graduate into a world already waiting to use them. And somewhere beyond the academy walls, the Bay of Pigs turns courage, loyalty, and bad American promises into blood in the surf.
RECALL is about boyhood at the edge of the American century, when duty still sounded clean from a podium and war still knew how to dress itself up as honor. It is about boys who wanted fathers, fathers who failed them, soldiers who could not save themselves, and a country that keeps asking the young to pay for the old men’s maps.
Starring Alan Rosenberg, Carson Bolde, Stone Garcia, Wesley Kimmel, Dan Lauria, Kensington Tallman, Roxton Garcia, Bruce Davison, Luca Diaz, Amari O’Neil, Amir O’Neil, David Errigo Jr., Zeke Alton, Gian Franco Rodriguez, Miki Yamashita, Nemil Mudvari, Sofia D’Marco, and Ashley Ciarra.
A portion of proceeds from RECALL will benefit the National Veterans Foundation and the Lifeline for Vets. To support NVF or speak with a Veteran who understands, visit https://nvf.org or call 888-777-4443.
Produced by Table Read Podcast and Manifest Media Productions, LLC.
Executive Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
RECALL Act 2
RECALL: Act Two In February 1961, the boys of Miami Military Academy are still marching, joking, fighting, shaving, bleeding, stealing, and pretending the world outside the gates is someone else’s problem. But …
Show notes
RECALL: Act Two
In February 1961, the boys of Miami Military Academy are still marching, joking, fighting, shaving, bleeding, stealing, and pretending the world outside the gates is someone else’s problem. But the world is already inside the school. It is in the news from Cuba. It is in the old munitions bunkers by the bay. It is in the secrets the adults keep, the wounds they drink through, and the wars they keep handing down to children.
Written by Academy Award nominee Bruce Davison, and once optioned and held by the great Carroll O’Connor with eyes on a Pacino lead,, RECALL is a funny, savage, deeply human coming-of-age drama about abandoned boys, broken fathers, old soldiers, Cuban exiles, secret weapons, and the machinery that turns fear into patriotism.
Act Two begins as Stephen Lishinsky tries to survive the strange education of “A” Company. His head has been butchered. His pride has been beaten. His idea of honor has already taken a few direct hits. When he tries to run, Commander Patterson finds him at the bus stop and gives him the kind of broken advice only a broken soldier can give: if you are in a storm, sometimes the only move is to sit tight and let the morning come.
But morning at Miami Military Academy is never clean.
Coombs is missing. The Razor Fiend is back. Bear is bleeding into the sink. Lindquist, the feral boy from the mango trees, is pulled into uniform and passed off as a cadet because, at this school, identity is just another piece of equipment someone misplaced. Sally Barnes drifts through the place like a lit match, furious at her father, suspicious of Patterson, and impossible for Lishinsky to ignore. Patterson tries to protect her, but the past between him, Colonel Barnes, and Sally’s mother is its own battlefield.
Meanwhile, Slouch and Bebop stop pretending their war is imaginary. The key to Bunker 3 becomes guns, ammunition, and contraband dragged through the machinery of a school that is already falling apart. Patterson lectures boys on amphibious landings while the real invasion waits in the shadows. Bebop is pulled closer to the Cuban exile cause. Slouch, half romantic and half criminal, follows him into the Everglades, into blindfolds, pistols, secret rooms, and men who do not look like teachers.
There is comedy everywhere because boys make comedy out of terror. There is coconut rum, marching songs, bad haircuts, chocolate cokes, contraband, dirty jokes, and the Dade County Fair waiting like a reward for good behavior nobody intends to have. But underneath the noise, the rifles are getting heavier. The lies are getting harder to carry. And the adults are running out of time.
RECALL is about boyhood at the exact moment history stops being a lesson and starts becoming a weapon. It is about fathers who failed, sons who improvise, countries that ask for sacrifice before they explain the cost, and boys who are still laughing because they do not yet understand what the world is loading.
Starring Alan Rosenberg, Carson Bolde, Stone Garcia, Wesley Kimmel, Dan Lauria, Kensington Tallman, Roxton Garcia, Bruce Davison, Luca Diaz, Amari O’Neil, Amir O’Neil, David Errigo Jr., Zeke Alton, Gian Franco Rodriguez, Miki Yamashita, Nemil Mudvari, Sofia D’Marco, and Ashley Ciarra.
A portion of proceeds from RECALL will benefit the National Veterans Foundation and the Lifeline for Vets. To support NVF or speak with a Veteran who understands, visit https://nvf.org or call 888-777-4443.
Produced by Table Read Podcast and Manifest Media Productions, LLC.
Executive Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
RECALL Act 1
RECALL: Act One In February 1961, while America watches Cuba on television and tells itself the next war will belong to someone else, a dying military academy in Miami is still teaching boys how to stand …
Show notes
RECALL: Act One
In February 1961, while America watches Cuba on television and tells itself the next war will belong to someone else, a dying military academy in Miami is still teaching boys how to stand straight, take orders, and become men.
Written by Academy Award nominee Bruce Davison, once optioned and held by the great Carroll O’Connor with eyes on a Pacino lead, RECALL is a funny, savage, deeply human coming-of-age drama about abandoned boys, broken fathers, old soldiers, Cuban exiles, secret weapons, and the first terrible lesson of history: nations do not only go to war with armies. Sometimes they go to war with children who still think they are playing.
Act One begins with Stephen Lishinsky arriving at Miami Military Academy, a bright Pennsylvania kid who volunteered for the brochure version of honor and discipline. What he finds is a parade field, a dying commandant, a school already being swallowed by the future, and two cadets handcuffed to a howitzer before morning formation.
Inside “A” Company, Lishinsky meets the boys who will become his education. Slouch is a Brooklyn-bred survivor with a cigarette in his mouth, a wound behind every joke, and a talent for turning trouble into currency. Bebop is a Cuban refugee carrying the murder of his father and the dream of taking his country back. Wheeler is an eleven-year-old officer with a sword too large for his body and a hunger for command. Sally Barnes is the commandant’s daughter, back from wherever she ran, driving straight through the gates with all the fury of someone returning to a home that has already become a ghost.
And then there is Commander Patterson, a decorated Navy veteran, drunk, wounded, funny, dangerous, and still trying, in his broken way, to protect boys the world has already thrown away.
The academy is collapsing. The boys know it. The adults know more than they are saying. Castro is on the news. Cuban exiles are moving in the shadows. The old munitions bunkers are not empty. And when Slouch pockets a key marked Bunker 3, military school stops being a game and starts becoming the first draft of a war story.
RECALL is about loyalty, damage, sacrifice, performance, class, country, boyhood, and the machinery that turns fear into patriotism. It is about the lie adults tell boys when they call obedience honor, and the moment those boys discover the rifles are real.
Starring Alan Rosenberg, Carson Bolde, Stone Garcia, Wesley Kimmel, Dan Lauria, Kensington Tallman, Roxton Garcia, Bruce Davison, Luca Diaz, Amari O’Neil, Amir O’Neil, David Errigo Jr., Zeke Alton, Gian Franco Rodriguez, Miki Yamashita, Nemil Mudvari, Sofia D’Marco, and Ashley Ciarra.
A portion of proceeds from RECALL will benefit the National Veterans Foundation and the Lifeline for Vets. To support NVF or speak with a Veteran who understands, visit https://nvf.org or call 888-777-4443.
Produced by Table Read Podcast and Manifest Media Productions, LLC.
Executive Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
RECALL - Trailer
RECALL trailer A dying military academy. A country drifting toward war. A group of boys told to stand straight, swallow fear, and call it honor. Set in 1961 Miami, RECALL follows Stephen Lishinsky, a …
Show notes
RECALL trailer
A dying military academy.
A country drifting toward war.
A group of boys told to stand straight, swallow fear, and call it honor.
Set in 1961 Miami, RECALL follows Stephen Lishinsky, a bright-eyed new cadet who volunteers for military school and walks into something far more dangerous than discipline.
Inside Miami Military Academy, abandoned boys become soldiers before they understand what war costs. A Brooklyn hustler steals weapons for Cuban exiles. A Cuban refugee carries the murder of his father and the dream of taking his country back. A decorated Navy hero drinks through old wounds while trying to protect boys the world has already thrown away.
Then Cuba moves closer.
The Bay of Pigs moves closer.
The rifles are not pretend anymore.
Written by Academy Award nominee Bruce Davison, and once optioned and held by the great Carroll O’Connor with eyes on a Pacino lead, RECALL is funny, brutal, beautiful, and dangerous. A coming-of-age story about loyalty, sacrifice, broken institutions, and the moment boys playing soldier discover the adults have been playing something much worse.
Starring Alan Rosenberg, Carson Bolde, Stone Garcia, Wesley Kimmel, Dan Lauria, Kensington Tallman, Roxton Garcia, Bruce Davison, Luca Diaz, Amari O’Neil, Amir O’Neil, David Errigo Jr., Zeke Alton, Gian Franco Rodriguez, Miki Yamashita, Nemil Mudvari, Sofia D’Marco, and Ashley Ciarra.
A portion of proceeds from RECALL will benefit the National Veterans Foundation and the Lifeline for Vets. To donate or get help, visit https://nvf.org or call 888-777-4443.
Because every story has oxygen.
And sometimes the best thing you can do with attention is point it toward someone who needs it more.
RECALL arrives Tuesday, June 16 on Table Read Podcast.
Listen to the trailer now.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
GATEWAY 3 & 4
The deeper we go, the stranger it gets.GATEWAY: Three & Four is now live.A missing scientist.A military experiment losing control.A government program based on real declassified files that suggests the human …
Show notes
The deeper we go, the stranger it gets.
GATEWAY: Three & Four is now live.
A missing scientist.
A military experiment losing control.
A government program based on real declassified files that suggests the human mind may not simply imagine other places, other times, or other dimensions.
It may be able to reach them.
At a moment when UAP disclosures, intelligence programs, government secrecy, and the unknown are no longer living at the edge of the conversation, GATEWAY feels less like science fiction and more like a classified question we were never supposed to ask out loud.
Inspired by the real declassified Gateway Process, Three & Four push Lt. Col. Wayne McDonnell beyond investigation and into something far more dangerous.
Itzhak Bentov is pulled into the Monroe Institute to help McDonnell move deeper through the Gateway.
General Addis wants control.
Nurse Fields may know more than she is saying.
McDonnell’s mother reaches across a line she should not be able to cross.
And somewhere between the physical world and the Gateway realm, the experiment stops being theory.
Because once consciousness leaves the body, the question is not where it can go.
The question is who else is already there.
The past is not quiet.
The future is not safe.
And the Gateway is no longer waiting to be opened.
It is open.
Starring Zeke Alton, Petri Hawkins Byrd, Ashley Platz, Cam Clarke, Pasha D. Lychnikoff, and Shaan Sharma.
Written by Dave Pirinelli.
Story by Jack Levy, Mark Knell, and Dave Pirinelli.
Produced by Table Read Podcast and Manifest Media Productions, LLC.
Executive Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell.
GATEWAY: Three & Four is live now on Table Read Podcast.
Listen now.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapters (2)
GATEWAY 1 & 2
Gateway: One & TwoA classified cockpit recording. A military tragedy wrapped in silence. A secret government experiment that suggests human consciousness may not be confined to the body, the brain, or even time …
Show notes
Gateway: One & Two
A classified cockpit recording. A military tragedy wrapped in silence. A secret government experiment that suggests human consciousness may not be confined to the body, the brain, or even time itself.
When Lt. Col. Wayne McDonnell is pulled into an investigation involving Army Intelligence, the CIA, and the mysterious Monroe Institute, he expects a case. What he finds is a threshold.
Inspired by the real declassified Gateway Process, Acts One and Two launch McDonnell into a world where science, espionage, altered consciousness, Hemi-Sync, remote viewing, and time begin to collapse into one terrifying possibility:
The mind may not simply observe reality.
It may be able to enter it.
As the experiment deepens, McDonnell encounters failed subjects, hidden rooms, impossible memories, and visions of the past too vivid to dismiss. What begins as an investigation becomes a journey into the most dangerous frontier ever explored: the human mind.
Because the past may not be gone.
The future may not be waiting.
And the Gateway may already be open.
Starring Zeke Alton, Petri Hawkins Byrd, Ashley Platz, Cam Clarke, Pasha D. Lychnikoff, and Shaan Sharma.
Written by Dave Pirinelli.
Story by Jack Levy, Mark Knell, and Dave Pirinelli.
Produced by Table Read Podcast and Manifest Media Productions, LLC.
Executive Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
THE G.Y.M. — PILOT ACTS 2 & 3
THE G.Y.M. — PILOT, ACTS TWO AND THREE By Dani HanksPick up where Act One left off. Valerie still cannot get her commercial. The film crew is still in her face. The Solstice gym across the street is still …
Show notes
THE G.Y.M. — PILOT, ACTS TWO AND THREE By Dani Hanks
Pick up where Act One left off. Valerie still cannot get her commercial. The film crew is still in her face. The Solstice gym across the street is still winning. And things are about to get considerably worse.
Bryan is teaching group fitness despite not knowing what "happy baby" is, and every senior in the building keeps asking when Reggie is coming back. Kayla is supposed to be training her client. Her client is currently turning purple under a barbell. The cameraman looks weirdly familiar to her and she cannot place it. Chris is somewhere in the locker room going through a smoothie situation he did not ask for. Wade the IT guy is crawling through a server closet stuffed with the unpaid invoices Valerie has been hiding in her clipboard. And Valerie, our hero, has just told the cute IT guy that her anaconda doesn't want his real estate funds.
It's fine. Everything is fine.
By the time we get to the pool, Alexa is jumping off a diving board she has no business being on, Bryan is leading a secret back room of seniors through a yoga pose he learned thirty seconds ago, Wade is sitting next to a soaking wet Valerie holding the worst envelopes she's ever seen in her life, and the truth about who's been filming all day is about to drop in the middle of the room like a brick through a window.
Underneath the chaos, this is what the show is actually about: a woman trying to save the only place she ever felt at home, with a crew of misfits who have nowhere else to go either. Norman Lear would recognize this gym. So would anybody who's ever worked at one.
Meanwhile, across the street, in a chrome office at the new Solstice, a Southern silver fox in a tall cowboy hat is watching the whole thing through binoculars. He is having the time of his life. He is not done with The G.Y.M. Not even close.
Recorded live at Podcast Movement at SXSW in front of a packed house of our peers, and you can hear it in the room. Video version available on YouTube and across our channels.
CAST
Heather Foster - Narrator Allison Dunbar - Valerie Yasmine Al-Bustami - Kayla and Spin Client Kensington Tallman - Alexa and White Trash Spin Diva Shaan Sharma - Wade, Bored EMT, and Johnny Joe Nemmers - Gary Hughes, Cocky Newscaster, Television, and Gruff Driver Jacob A. Ware - Bryan and Sam Brian Villalobos - Chris, Weak-Armed Client, and Handyman Amy Bailey - Mary, Gem, Peppy Newscaster, First AC, and Phone Scott Hervey - Client Carlin (special guest appearance, our attorney from Weintraub Tobin)
Produced by Manifest Media. Created by Jack Levy, Mark Knell, and Shaan Sharma.
This live read benefits Best Friends Animal Society, selected by Allison Dunbar, dedicated to bringing no-kill to every shelter in the country. Save Them All. bestfriends.org/donate
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
THE G.Y.M. — PILOT, ACT ONE
THE G.Y.M. — PILOT, ACT ONE By Dani HanksWelcome to the run-down fitness shithole at the end of the strip mall. Two buildings left standing, a tech repair shop and The G.Y.M., and across the street a brand new …
Show notes
THE G.Y.M. — PILOT, ACT ONE By Dani Hanks
Welcome to the run-down fitness shithole at the end of the strip mall. Two buildings left standing, a tech repair shop and The G.Y.M., and across the street a brand new chrome-and-barbell luxury chain called Solstice is having its grand opening on the same day Valerie is trying to film her grand re-opening commercial.
Valerie inherited her childhood sanctuary the hard way. The previous owner got hauled off in handcuffs as "The Flamingo King," the FBI took the penguins, and she sank her life savings into keeping the bulldozers off the lot. Now the bike handlebars are snapping mid-shoot, the wifi is down, the POS is down, the smoothie blender is wifi-controlled (a mistake), and a real estate vulture in pinstripes will not stop circling the parking lot. Her ragtag crew, an Insta-thirsty trainer, a Finnish golden retriever on a visa, a chaos-gremlin receptionist who cannot swim, a buttoned-up IT guy from next door, a smoothie-bar veteran who misses the cocaine era, and a crystal-worshipping yogi with prison connections, is the only thing standing between Valerie and the wrecking ball.
It's a found-family workplace comedy in the bloodline of Cheers, Superstore, and The Bear, but make it the gym. HBO sitcom material with prime-network legs. Dani Hanks' pilot won the 2024 Austin Film Festival Josephson Entertainment Fellowship, the year-long development deal AFF hands to the one teleplay it bets the most on, and ISA named Dani one of the Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch in 2025.
We recorded this live at Podcast Movement at SXSW in front of a packed house of our peers, and you can hear it in the room. The energy, the laughs landing in real time, the cast riding the wave together. Video version available on YouTube and across our channels. Lean in with that, then let Act One take you the rest of the way.
CAST
Heather Foster - Narrator Allison Dunbar - Valerie Yasmine Al-Bustami - Kayla and Spin Client Kensington Tallman - Alexa and White Trash Spin Diva Shaan Sharma - Wade, Bored EMT, and Johnny Joe Nemmers - Gary Hughes, Cocky Newscaster, Television, and Gruff Driver Jacob A. Ware - Bryan and Sam Brian Villalobos - Chris, Weak-Armed Client, and Handyman Amy Bailey - Mary, Gem, Peppy Newscaster, First AC, and Phone Scott Hervey - Client Carlin (special guest appearance, our attorney from Weintraub Tobin)
Produced by Manifest Media. Created by Jack Levy, Mark Knell, and Shaan Sharma.
This live read benefits Best Friends Animal Society, selected by Allison Dunbar, dedicated to bringing no-kill to every shelter in the country. Save Them All. bestfriends.org/donate
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapters (2)
PV & FRANNY - Part 2
PV & FRANNYA girl with a glockenspiel. A boy with a guitar. A high school full of weirdos, mascots who may or may not be unhinged, and a mystery that isn’t what anyone thinks it is.A dead-serious love story… …
Show notes
PV & FRANNY
A girl with a glockenspiel. A boy with a guitar. A high school full of weirdos, mascots who may or may not be unhinged, and a mystery that isn’t what anyone thinks it is.
A dead-serious love story… that refuses to behave like one.
One flier turns into a band. One band turns into obsession. And before they ever play a real set, everything is already ridiculous.
ACT TWO
If Act One is about starting a band, Act Two is about what happens when everything immediately gets in the way.
Franny does what any rational person would do.
He writes a love song.
Which would be fine… except for the rule.
No romance. Ever.
And PV means it.
What follows is a series of perfectly logical decisions that somehow make everything worse.
A love song that says too much.
A date that shouldn’t exist.
A plan to fix things that only complicates them further.
Because if PV won’t date a bandmate, there’s only one solution:
Make the competition part of the band.
Which works.
Until it doesn’t.
As alliances shift, rules get enforced, and Franny finds himself deeper in a situation he cannot control, the band becomes something else entirely.
Not just music.
Not just friendship.
Something closer to a test.
Of loyalty. Of identity. Of whether you can separate what you create from how you feel.
And in the middle of it all, the stakes quietly expand.
A school competition that suddenly matters.
A partnership that feels more intense than anything either of them expected.
And a realization that success might not look the way they imagined it.
Act Two is where the band takes shape, the lines get blurred, and the consequences of those rules start to land.
Because sometimes the only thing more complicated than love…
…is trying to avoid it.
🎭 CAST
NARRATOR – Ty Burrell
AJAY – Rahm Braslaw
JUDY – Samantha Morelos
MARIAN – Eileen Fogarty
PV – Kensington Tallman
RYUZO – O’Neill Monahan
FRANNY – Liam Richardson
GROUNDSKEEPER – Fred Armisen
DALE – Ruben Ray
TAP WATER BOTTLED WATER JINGLE – Chris Mann
🎬 PRODUCTION
Written by Tommy Wallach
Directed by Mark Knell & Jack Levy
Executive Produced by Shaan Sharma, Jack Levy, and Mark Knell
Table Read is a Manifest Media production.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
PV & FRANNY - Part 1
PV & FRANNYA girl with a glockenspiel. A boy with a guitar. A high school full of weirdos, mascots who may or may not be unhinged, and a mystery that isn’t what anyone thinks it is.A dead-serious love story… …
Show notes
PV & FRANNY
A girl with a glockenspiel. A boy with a guitar. A high school full of weirdos, mascots who may or may not be unhinged, and a mystery that isn’t what anyone thinks it is.
A dead-serious love story… that refuses to behave like one.
One flier turns into a band. One band turns into obsession. And before they ever play a real set, everything is already ridiculous.
ACT ONE
Overton High is chaos in a controlled environment.
The mascot smokes. The journalist thinks she’s breaking Watergate. The nicest bully in school politely refuses lunch money.
And then there’s PV.
Brilliant. Intense. Completely uncompromising.
She doesn’t want to start a band. She wants to build something real.
Franny Blevins just wants to be part of it.
What begins as an awkward coffee shop encounter quickly turns into a partnership built on music, rules, and one very firm boundary:
No romance. Ever.
Which becomes a problem almost immediately.
As Franny gets pulled deeper into PV’s world, her music, her logic, her investigations, and her completely upside-down way of seeing everything, the stakes escalate in the most unexpected ways.
A hate note that isn’t hate.
An audition that turns into an interrogation.
A band that starts to feel like something much bigger… and much messier.
Act One is the beginning of the band, the beginning of the obsession, and the moment everything starts to spiral just slightly out of control.
🎭 CAST
NARRATOR – Ty Burrell
AJAY – Rahm Braslaw
JUDY – Samantha Morelos
MARIAN – Eileen Fogarty
PV – Kensington Tallman
RYUZO – O’Neill Monahan
FRANNY – Liam Richardson
GROUNDSKEEPER – Fred Armisen
DALE – Ruben Ray
TAP WATER BOTTLED WATER JINGLE – Chris Mann
🎬 PRODUCTION
Written by Tommy Wallach
Directed by Mark Knell & Jack Levy
Executive Produced by Shaan Sharma, Jack Levy, and Mark Knell
Table Read is a Manifest Media production.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
MY LADY'S SONG - Act 3
A mother is murdered. A tape destroys everything. And a driver who kept his mouth shut for twelve years finally decides to speak — with blood.ACT THREEThe blackmail worked.That’s the problem.Because once the …
Show notes
A mother is murdered. A tape destroys everything. And a driver who kept his mouth shut for twelve years finally decides to speak — with blood.
ACT THREE
The blackmail worked.
That’s the problem.
Because once the truth is out, there’s nothing left to negotiate.
Only what it costs.
Sal is done driving.
He’s done surviving.
And for the first time since he walked out of prison, he’s not trying to stay clean... he’s trying to settle accounts.
Hara finally reveals what Lotta really built, not a hustle, not a side game, but a system designed to take down men who thought they were untouchable. Vincent moves to contain it. Charlie gets caught in the fallout. And Carmela... the only innocent in a guilty world, pays for all of it.
That’s the moment the story breaks.
Not when the tape surfaces.
When the family does.
Act Three is not about power.
It’s about what power does when it slips.
Doors close. Phones stop ringing. Old friends don’t answer.
And the men who used to run everything start hiding from one man who has nothing left to lose.
Sal isn’t looking for a way out.
He’s looking for the last word.
And it’s waiting in a garage... one hostage, one voice over the intercom, and one decision that decides who walks and who gets carried out.
My Lady’s Song was never about blackmail.
It was about what happens after.
This is the part nobody survives.
🎭 CAST
SAL – Ronnie Marmo
CHARLIE – Sam McMurray
SENATOR BAXTER / THE JOHN – Joe Mantegna
VINCENT – Dan Lauria
HARA – Gia Mantegna
LOTTA – Ally Dunbar
DONNA – Janelle Marmo
CARMELA – Patty McCormack
PORN DIRECTOR – Robert Wuhl
LEO – Zeke Alton
ANTHONY – Alec Leonard
NARRATOR – Vanessa Richardson
With additional performances from:
Janelle Marmo, Ally Dunbar, Gia Mantegna, Zeke Alton, Alec Leonard
🎬 PRODUCTION
Directed by Jack Levy & Mark Knell
Executive Produced by Shaan Sharma, Mark Knell, and Jack Levy
Table Read is a Manifest Media production.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
MY LADY'S SONG - Act 2
A limo driver. A blackmail tape in motion. A senator with everything to protect. What started as leverage is about to turn into control, betrayal, and survival.ACT TWOThe ride is over. The damage is not.What …
Show notes
A limo driver. A blackmail tape in motion. A senator with everything to protect.
What started as leverage is about to turn into control, betrayal, and survival.
ACT TWO
The ride is over. The damage is not.
What was leverage becomes exposure.
And everyone wants a piece of it.
Sal thought he could drive away from it.
He was wrong.
The tape moves.
Hands change. Intentions shift.
And the people behind it start stepping into the light.
Vincent steps in. Old world. Old rules.
A man who understands that power isn’t what you have… it’s what you can take back.
Charlie circles.
Smiling just enough to make you wonder how far this goes.
And Baxter?
He doesn’t panic. He recalculates.
Because men like him don’t lose… they rewrite the outcome.
Hara sees it too.
The angles. The leverage. The opening.
And she’s not asking permission.
The city fades in the rearview. The road stretches out.
What’s left is distance… and decisions.
Who controls the tape?
Who controls the story?
And who walks away from it?
Because now it’s not about the job.
It’s about ownership.
Act Two is where alliances fracture, truth gets negotiated, and silence becomes the most dangerous move in the room.
And by the time it’s over…
no one is clean.
🎭 CAST
SAL – Ronnie Marmo
CHARLIE – Sam McMurray
SENATOR BAXTER / THE JOHN – Joe Mantegna
VINCENT – Dan Lauria
HARA – Gia Mantegna
LOTTA – Ally Dunbar
NARRATOR – Vanessa Richardson
DONNA – Janelle Marmo
CARMELA – Patty McCormack
PORN DIRECTOR – Robert Wuhl
LEO – Zeke Alton
ANTHONY – Alec Leonard
With additional performances from:
Janelle Marmo, Ally Dunbar, Gia Mantegna, Zeke Alton, Alec Leonard
🎬 PRODUCTION
Directed by Jack Levy & Mark Knell
Executive Produced by Shaan Sharma, Jack Levy, and Mark Knell
Table Read is a Manifest Media production.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
My Lady's Song - Act 1
MY LADY'S SONGA limo driver. Two porn stars. A senator with everything to lose.One night in New York that turns into leverage, betrayal, and war.ACT ONENew York. Late-night Eighth Avenue. Strip clubs, neon, and …
Show notes
MY LADY'S SONG
A limo driver. Two porn stars. A senator with everything to lose.
One night in New York that turns into leverage, betrayal, and war.
ACT ONE
New York. Late-night Eighth Avenue. Strip clubs, neon, and power moving quietly behind tinted glass.
Sal “The Barber” Marino is a former soldier of the streets, a man who did twelve years without talking and now makes a living driving high-end clients through a city he no longer trusts.
One call pulls him back in.
A simple job. Easy money. Drive the girls. Pick up the client. Keep your mouth shut.
But the client is a powerful senator.
The ride is being recorded.
And the job isn’t what it seems.
What starts as routine turns into leverage. a blackmail setup that reaches into politics, unions, and the last remnants of old-school control.
As the night bleeds into morning and the city gives way to the open road, Sal is locked in with Hara; young, sharp, and unpredictable. Two worlds collide. Old code versus new survival.
And then it breaks.
A confrontation. A line crossed.
A slap that lands harder than anything that came before.
That’s the moment everything changes.
Act One ends when business becomes personal... and there’s no going back.
🎭 CAST
SAL – Ronnie Marmo
CHARLIE – Sam McMurray
SENATOR BAXTER / THE JOHN – Joe Mantegna
VINCENT – Dan Lauria
HARA – Gia Mantegna
LOTTA – Ally Dunbar
NARRATOR – Vanessa Richardson
DONNA – Janelle Marmo
CARMELA – Patty McCormack
PORN DIRECTOR – Robert Wuhl
LEO – Zeke Alton
ANTHONY – Alec Leonard
🎬 PRODUCTION
Directed by Mark Knell & Jack Levy
Executive Produced by Shaan Sharma, Jack Levy, and Mark Knell
Table Read is a Manifest Media production.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
🎧 THE G.Y.M. | Trailer
🎧 THE G.Y.M. Welcome to THE G.Y.M.Not a gym. A situation.Valerie inherited a neighborhood gym from her mother.What she actually inherited? Debt, broken equipment, a failing business… and a staff that turns …
Show notes
🎧 THE G.Y.M.
Welcome to THE G.Y.M.
Not a gym. A situation.
Valerie inherited a neighborhood gym from her mother.
What she actually inherited? Debt, broken equipment, a failing business… and a staff that turns every small problem into a full-blown emergency.
Across the street, a sleek corporate fitness empire is opening with glass walls, perfect lighting, and zero chaos.
Inside The G.Y.M.?
Flooded hot tubs.
Out-of-order bikes.
A spin class that may or may not be a lawsuit waiting to happen.
And a “Grand Re-Opening” that could either save the place… or finally finish it.
This is a workplace comedy where nothing works, nobody communicates, and every attempt to fix things somehow makes them worse.
Think Parks and Recreation meets It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, set inside a failing gym where the stakes are low… until suddenly they’re not.
Recorded live at SXSW /. Podcast Movement, this Austin Film Festival award-winning script by Dani Hanks delivers fast, character-driven comedy with just enough heart to make you root for people who absolutely should not be in charge of anything.
You don’t come here to get fit.
You come here because something is definitely about to go wrong.
🎭 Cast
Allison Dunbar as Valerie
Yasmine Al-Bustami as Kayla
Kensington Tallman as Alexa
Shaan Sharma as Wade
Joe Nemmers as Gary Hughes
Jacob A. Ware as Bryan
Brian Villalobos as Chris
Amy Bailey as Mary
Heather Foster, Narrator
Special appearance by our attorney Scott Hervey as Client Carlin
🎬 From Table Read Podcast
Executive Producers: Jack Levy, Mark Knell, & Shaan Sharma
Produced by Manifest Media Productions
Recorded live at SXSW / Podcast Movement
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
My Lady’s Song - Trailer
TABLE READ: My Lady’s SongWritten by Dan LauriaNew York. Late-night Eighth Avenue. Strip clubs, limos, politicians, porn stars, and ghosts of the old neighborhood.My Lady’s Song drops you straight into the …
Show notes
TABLE READ: My Lady’s Song
Written by Dan Lauria
New York. Late-night Eighth Avenue. Strip clubs, limos, politicians, porn stars, and ghosts of the old neighborhood.
My Lady’s Song drops you straight into the smoky, blood-soaked underbelly of a city that doesn’t forgive and never forgets.
Sal “The Barber” Marino is an aging ex-soldier of the streets — a limo driver who once did twelve years without talking. Now he drives high-end clients and keeps his head down. But when a powerful senator, a pair of porn stars, and a blackmail tape collide during sensitive union negotiations, Sal is pulled back into a world he thought he left behind.
This is not a nostalgia piece.
This is loyalty versus survival.
Old code versus new money.
Family versus leverage.
Set against a soundtrack style of Billie Holiday, Etta James, Dinah Washington, and Bessie Smith, My Lady’s Song moves like Goodfellas at midnight and feels like The Sopranos when the jokes stop being funny.
What starts as a simple drive to Los Angeles turns into a reckoning — with betrayal, with memory, and with the cost of keeping your mouth shut.
Nobody in podcasting is bringing this level of writing, performance, and cinematic scope.
This is prestige drama.
Performed. Not narrated.
Hollywood caliber. Start to finish.
___________________________________
🎭 FULL CAST
SAL – Ronnie Marmo
An ex-con soldier turned limo driver. Hardened. Loyal. Dangerous when pushed.
CHARLIE – Sam McMurray
La Salle Limo manager. Old-school operator with a sharp tongue.
SENATOR BAXTER / THE JOHN – Joe Mantegna
Powerful, polished, and utterly ruthless. Politics meets leverage.
VINCENT – Dan Lauria
Union boss. Businessman. Architect of control.
HARA – Gia Mantegna
Young, defiant, smarter than everyone assumes.
LOTTA – Ally Dunbar
Savvy operator. Knows how to play both sides of the camera.
NARRATOR – Vanessa Richardson
A true-crime icon brings gravitas and noir elegance to the storytelling spine.
DONNA – Janelle Marmo
CARMELA – Patty McCormack
PORN DIRECTOR – Robert Wuhl
LEO – Zeke Alton
ANTHONY – Alec Leonard
With additional performances from:
Janelle Marmo
Ally Dunbar
Gia Mantegna
Zeke Alton
Alec Leonard
This cast could walk onto a soundstage tomorrow and shoot this for theatrical release. It’s that level.
____________________________________________________________________
Directed by Mark Knell & Jack Levy
Executive Produced by Shaan Sharma, Jack Levy, and Mark Knell
Table Read is a Manifest Media production.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Caravaggio - Act 3
The cage breaks open. Caravaggio breaks with it.Chained in a torture chamber beneath the fortress, Caravaggio faces the Grand Master one last time. Faith against flesh. Obedience against desire. What follows is …
Show notes
The cage breaks open. Caravaggio breaks with it.
Chained in a torture chamber beneath the fortress, Caravaggio faces the Grand Master one last time. Faith against flesh. Obedience against desire. What follows is an escape down a fortress wall, a boat in the dark, and a fugitive painter running not toward freedom but toward the only thing he has left.
Act Three is the fall. Brutal. Beautiful. Inevitable.
Sicily. Caravaggio paints like a man on fire. In Syracuse, a burial. In Messina, a nativity. Each canvas more desperate than the last. Each one a confession he cannot say out loud. The genius is still there. The man holding the brush is disappearing.
Back in Rome, the news arrives. Lena. The woman whose face launched his greatest work. Gone. Caravaggio learns what it costs to leave someone behind in a city that devours the unprotected.
Cardinal Del Monte makes his final play. A pardon. A real one. Signed by the Pope himself. But the pardon needs a delivery and Caravaggio needs to stay alive long enough to receive it.
Naples. A prison cell. Malaria. Chains. The Grand Master finds him one last time. Two men who could never say what they meant finally say it. It is too late for both of them.
Then a swamp. Bandits. A boiling sun. A beach. A boy. Two nuns. And the Tyrrhenian coast, where the greatest painter of his generation reaches for the light one final time.
The pardon arrives. The man does not.
Act Three is reckoning. Loss. Grace. The moment the fuse runs out.
What you see in the art, you will find in the artist. What you see in the artist, you will find in the man.
Cast
Dennis Kleinman · Narrator
Craig Parker · Caravaggio
Dan Lauria · Cardinal Del Monte
Bruce Davison · Alof de Wignacourt
Shaan Sharma · Stefano della Croce
Catherine Lidstone · Lena
Sarah Elmaleh · Maria
Brendan Bradley · Annibale Carracci
Noah James · Ranuccio Tomassoni
Josh Sterling · Ottavio Tomassoni
Zeke Alton · Giovan Tomassoni
Nick Monteleone · Mancini
Matt Curtin · Toppa
Bjorn Johnson · Pope Paul V
Ray Abruzzo · Pope Clement VIII
Written by Richard Vetere
Executive Produced by Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell
Table Read is a Manifest Media production.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Caravaggio - Act 2
Malta. A fortress carved from rock, surrounded by sea, ruled by warrior monks who pray at dawn and kill by noon.Caravaggio arrives to paint a portrait. He stays because he has no choice. The Grand Master offers …
Show notes
Malta. A fortress carved from rock, surrounded by sea, ruled by warrior monks who pray at dawn and kill by noon.
Caravaggio arrives to paint a portrait. He stays because he has no choice. The Grand Master offers sanctuary, admiration, and something neither man is prepared to name. The Captain at Arms offers suspicion, jealousy, and a locked door every night.
Act Two is the cage. Beautiful. Suffocating. Holy.
Caravaggio paints the Grand Master's portrait and captures more than armor and scars. He captures a man's loneliness. The Knights throw a feast in his honor. He dances on tables. He is knighted with a gold sword. He is watched from every window.
Back in Rome, Cardinal Del Monte fights for a papal pardon while the Tomassoni brothers hire bounty hunters. The Pope dies. A new Pope rises. The Church still cannot decide what Caravaggio is worth.
On the beach, the Turks attack. Knights are nailed to crosses and set on fire, floated into the harbor at dawn. Caravaggio picks up a sword for the first time. He gives water to a dying boy. The boy is killed in front of him.
Flashbacks pull him back to Rome. To Lena. To the night Ranuccio came for him with a blade. To the moment that changed everything.
He paints The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist on a chapel wall and signs his name in the blood flowing from the saint's neck. The only painting he ever signed.
Then he paints a Cupid so grotesque it seals his fate.
Act Two is devotion. Desire. Betrayal. The moment a man realizes that the sanctuary he was promised is just a prison with better art on the walls.
The fuse is burning.
Cast
Dennis Kleinman · Narrator
Craig Parker · Caravaggio
Dan Lauria · Cardinal Del Monte
Bruce Davison · Alof de Wignacourt
Shaan Sharma · Stefano della Croce
Catherine Lidstone · Lena
Sarah Elmaleh · Maria
Brendan Bradley · Annibale Carracci
Noah James · Ranuccio Tomassoni
Josh Sterling · Ottavio Tomassoni
Zeke Alton · Giovan Tomassoni
Nick Monteleone · Mancini
Matt Curtin · Toppa
Bjorn Johnson · Pope Paul V
Ray Abruzzo · Pope Clement VIII
Written by
Richard Vetere
Executive Produced by
Jack Levy, Shaan Sharma, and Mark Knell
Table Read is a Manifest Media production.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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