Barbara made it to the house. Barely.

Ben's about to turn it into a war zone.

Ben spins suddenly inside the kitchen door and the movie stops being polite. This is where Romero strips the fantasy out of survival and leaves you with splinters, sweat, and the sound of a man trying to think faster than death moves.

Zeke Alton plays Ben like a man who's already lost but refuses to lie down. He hammers, he plans, he moves. Barbara, still shattered in Olivia Graham's haunting performance, watches him build their coffin and calls it hope. The boards go up. The windows disappear. The house becomes a box.

Then Ben does the unthinkable - he lights the dead on fire.

A corpse burns in the yard like a funeral no one asked for. The flames push back the night, and for thirty seconds, it feels like winning. But fire doesn't last, and the dead don't quit. They just wait.

The radio crackles to life: "Stay inside. Stay calm."

Ben laughs without sound. Calm died an hour ago.

Romero doesn't give you relief. He gives you wood, nails, and the slow realization that every choice Ben makes is the wrong choice and the only choice. Barbara floats through the room like a ghost practicing for the real thing. The house groans. The dead press closer. And somewhere in the static, the world pretends it still has answers.

By the time Ben mutters, "All right, this is your decisions," and they move toward the glow of the television, the farmhouse has stopped being shelter. It's a tomb with a TV set, and the truth is about to crawl out of the screen.

Romero doesn't write escape.

He writes what happens when the walls hold but the people don't.

The dead are patient.

The living are coming apart.

CAST

Narrator: Jack Daniel

Ben / Truck Driver: Zeke Alton

Barbara: Olivia Graham

Harry Tinsdale: Jim Connor

Helen Cooper: Wendy Shapero

Tom: Charlie Bodin

Sheriff McClelland: Rob Fitzgerald

TV Commentator: Adam Pilver

Zombies / Ghouls: Natalia Castellanos & Josh Sterling

Light a match. Lock the door. Press play.

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They say legends never die. Turns out, neither do their zombies.

In this special Table Read Podcast event, featuring a foreword by New York Times bestselling horror author Scott Sigler, we crack open the original 1968 Night of the Living Dead script, the one George A. Romero actually wrote before the edits, the rewrites, the budget, and the chaos. This is Romero raw and unfiltered. Every word, every stage direction, every creeping dread exactly as it hit the page before it hit the lens.

You think you’ve seen Night of the Living Dead? You haven’t. You’ve seen the movie. This is the mind behind the movie. The blueprint that split horror wide open and rewired the genre forever.

ACT ONE: “They’re Coming to Get You, Barbara”

It starts quiet. Too quiet.

A car grinds up a lonely Pennsylvania hill into a cemetery where the dead are supposed to stay dead. Barbara and her brother Johnny, bickering, restless, too human for their own good, walk straight into the kind of dusk where nothing bad has happened yet.

Romero takes his time. He paints dread with daylight. Every cricket, every whisper of grass feels like a countdown. Johnny cracks the line that changed horror forever:

“They’re coming to get you, Barbara.”

And then they do.

The attack is ugly, real, and raw. No slick cuts or Hollywood screams. Just human panic meeting human decay. Barbara’s brother goes down, and the world tilts off its axis. She runs barefoot through the graveyard, through the dark, through the sound of her own heartbeat losing the race.

She stumbles into a farmhouse, the kind of place that used to mean safety in old movies, and finds only silence, blood, and memory. The phone’s dead. The air hums wrong. And in that silence, Romero builds the first true church of modern horror.

Then Ben arrives, played with fire by Zeke Alton, a man caught between survival and sanity. He’s no superhero. He’s sweat, breath, and motion. While Barbara, brought to life by Olivia Graham, unravels, Ben fights back, board by board, nail by nail, until the walls themselves start to shake.

By the end of Act One, the flames are rising, the dead are circling, and two strangers are clinging to the last illusion of safety. The world outside isn’t ending. It already ended.

Romero didn’t just write a horror story.

He wrote America’s bad dream, and we just woke it up.

CAST

Narrator: Jack Daniel

Ben / Truck Driver: Zeke Alton

Barbara: Olivia Graham

Harry Tinsdale: Jim Connor

Helen Cooper: Wendy Shapero

Tom: Charlie Bodin

Sheriff McClelland: Rob Fitzgerald

TV Commentator: Adam Pilver

Zombies / Ghouls: Natalia Castellanos & Josh Sterling

Light a match. Lock the door. Press play.

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NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: THE ORIGINAL SCRIPT A Table Read Podcast Event

Before Duane Jones rewrote cinema history. Before the farmhouse became ground zero for modern horror. Before "They're coming to get you, Barbara" entered the cultural lexicon forever.

There was the script George Romero actually wrote.

And holy shit, it's nothing like what you think you know.

Picture this: Ben wasn't Ben - he was "Truckdriver." Barbara wasn't traumatized - she was practically catatonic from page one. The basement wasn't a refuge - it was barely mentioned. And that ending that scarred you for life? Completely different.

This isn't just some lost draft gathering dust. This is the DNA of every zombie story that followed, in its purest, most unfiltered form.

Jack Daniel narrates this apocalyptic archaeological dig - the SAG-AFTRA powerhouse behind trailers for The Suicide Squad, Ford v Ferrari, and Jackass Forever.

With our killer cast: Zeke Alton as Ben (former Navy Test Pilot, "Eyes of Wakanda") Olivia Graham as Barbara ("Agent") Jim Connor as Harry Tinsdale (the legendary Larry Culpepper!) Wendy Shapero as Helen Cooper ("Robot Chicken") Rob Fitzgerald as Sheriff McClelland (the original "I Love You Man" Johnny) Charlie Bodin as Tom ("Halt and Catch Fire") Adam Pilver as TV Commentator ("Timeless") Natalia Castellanos as Zombies/Ghouls ("Bosch: Legacy") Josh Sterling as Zombies/Ghouls ("Tenants")

Seven strangers. One farmhouse. The birth of modern horror.

But not the way you remember it.

TABLE READ PODCAST Where great stories come alive

Available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Some resurrections are worth waiting for.

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Henrietta has stopped speaking. At St. Rosalia Indian School in 1905, silence is the only weapon left to her. The nuns mistake it for surrender. They don’t see how compassion slips between the cracks: a blanket to a shivering girl, a crust of bread for a starving boy, a circle of children daring to call magic into being with their hands. When a glowing light answers Henrietta’s defiance, the children learn to believe again—though belief always comes with a cost.

Back in Oak Bluffs, Maya sees the same light. And now she wants answers. Who were Henrietta’s people? What words set her free? With Lupe’s help—and a genealogist who knows the Wampanoag roots of this island—Maya begins a search her father would never understand. Robert, meanwhile, is losing clients, losing patience, and perhaps, losing his grip. He finds Lupe at grief counseling, and their past lives brush against the present in ways neither expected.

At Moonstone Rescue, a golden retriever’s broken leg tests the line between sanctuary and science. At Jean’s art show, Maya enlists her friends in a ridiculous sabotage campaign to keep her dad away from the witch. And at the edge of the farm, Axel Grayson makes his move—sending his realtor with offers of money, sentiment, and thinly veiled threats.

Written by Dominique Mouton.

Starring Vanessa Richardson, Madison Griggs, Rainbow Dickerson, Zeke Alton, Sarah Elmaleh, Angel Harper, Amanda Christine, David Reeves Tordilla, Parker Johnson, Derek Mehn, Felisha Wong, and Sarah Phillips.

This is what happens when light returns to the silenced. When the words of your ancestor call across generations. When Oak Bluffs decides who belongs, and who will be cast out.

Executive Producers: Shaan Sharma, Mark Knell, Jack Levy

TABLE READ A Manifest Media production.

Big thanks to Mood.com our partner in high vibes. Use code TABLEREAD20 for 20% off at Mood.com. Legal THC & CBD. Nationwide. You’re welcome

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Moonstone Rescue (Pilot)

Maya Rhodes hasn’t spoken to her dead mother in two years. Not since the cancer. Not since her veterinarian father started putting down healthy animals and drinking alone at 2 p.m. Not since their black cat, Henrietta, began leading her to a farm everyone swears is cursed.

In Oak Bluffs, where rich men own everything and old women remember longer, lives Lupe McGregor. Part Wampanoag, part nobody’s business. The town calls her widow, witch, killer. Maya calls her the only adult who sees animals the way she does: as messengers carrying old grief and older medicine.

This is a ghost story where the living do more damage than the dead. Where 14-year-old girls inherit their great-great-grandmother’s boarding school traumas through dreams. Where love means teaching someone which plants heal... and which ones help you forget. Where a rose-breasted grosbeak at a cemetery means your mother heard you graduate, even if your father says birds are just birds, and dead means dead.

Written by Dominique Mouton.

Starring Vanessa Richardson, Madison Griggs, Rainbow Dickerson, Zeke Alton, Sarah Elmaleh, Angel Harper, Amanda Christine, David Reeves Tordilla, Parker Johnson, Derek Mehn, Felisha Wong, and Sarah Phillips.

This is what happens when the cat you named after your ancestor starts disappearing. You follow her. Even when she leads you to the witch’s house. Especially then.

Executive Producers: Shaan Sharma, Mark Knell, Jack Levy

TABLE READ A Manifest Media production.

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Moonstone Rescue mixes the sweep of family history with the wild side of magic realism. Moonstone unpacks the tangled lives of a small-town family... think intergenerational secrets, a talking cat with attitude, and ghosts that are way more than memories.

It’s part coming-of-age, part supernatural mystery, all wrapped in a voice that’s equal parts poetic and unfiltered. The story hits that sweet spot where grief collides with hope, and where love... sometimes messy, sometimes fierce... pulls everyone through.

Funny, brave, and a little bit haunted, Moonstone Rescue is for anyone who believes family legends are true, ancestors have unfinished business, and magic is hiding right under your nose.

Written by:

Dominique Mouton

Cast:

NARRATOR Vanessa Richardson

MAYA RHODES Madison Griggs

ROBERT RHODES Zeke Alton

NORAH RHODES/WOMAN. Sarah Elmaleh

JEAN RHODES Angel Harper

LUPE MCGREGOR Rainbow Dickerson

AXEL GRAYSON Ivar Brogger

JACKIE ANDREWS Amanda Christine

HUGO FUENTES David Reeves Tordilla

MAVERICK GRAYSON Parker Johnson

JOSH ROLLINS Derek Mehn

ZARA Felisha Wong

MRS. SILVA Sarah Phillips

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PABLO’S RHINO – ACT THREE

This is it. The rhino’s still dead. Pablo’s still insane. And our three idiots? They’re in way too deep… and now they’re in a musical.

Charlie’s hallucinating. Sam might be in love. Marcus definitely joins a jungle cult. And somehow, everyone’s singing. Yes, even Pablo. Yes, it slaps.

There’s a DEA sting gone sideways. A Colombian jungle rave with ayahuasca and jazz hands. A butt gets shot. A fake rhino gets stolen. And the final scene? Picture Book of Mormon on cocaine—if the choir was armed and one guy’s still pooping in a tree.

It’s sweaty. It’s stupid. It’s glorious.

This is Act Three of Pablo’s Rhino.

And it might just be our masterpiece.

Starring:

Written by Craig Goodwill & Sam Ruano, Pablo’s Rhino is a tequila-soaked thrill ride full of midlife panic, monkey knife fights, and unexpected heart.

Turn up. Black out. Hit play.

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Our three heroes are officially in over their heads.

After accidentally killing a rhinoceros that belonged to Pablo Escobar (yes, that Pablo Escobar), Charlie, Sam, and Marcus must scramble to replace the beast—or face the wrath of a very-much-alive crime lord.

Act Two turns the volume up on absurdity, as the guys tumble through hallucinogenic jungle rituals, cartel parties, DEA showdowns, a full-on rhino heist, and one unexpected monologue that might just save their lives.

Starring:

Written by Craig Goodwill & Sam Ruano, Pablo’s Rhino is a tequila-soaked thrill ride full of midlife panic, monkey knife fights, and unexpected heart.

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🚨 Feed Drop Alert from your friends at Table Read!
Our pals at Voyage Media—creators of multiple #1 fiction podcasts—are back with I Am Echo, a mind-bending sci-fi thriller that’s part Succession, part Westworld. Season Two just dropped, now starring the legendary Tony Shalhoub (Monk, Maisel), picking up where Season One's buried secrets left off. Memory implants, billionaire power plays, and a daughter who holds the key to it all. It’s twisty, high-stakes, and binge-worthy.

🎧 Both seasons of I Am Echo are now streaming—check out the trailer here and dive in.

https://www.voyagemedia.fm/show/i-am-echo/

Charlie Bleeker’s life is unraveling—his writing career is stalled, his ex-wife is a cop who can't resist pulling him over, and his teenage son views him as a failure.

When his reckless childhood friend Marcus proposes a dubious investment opportunity in Colombia, Charlie reluctantly agrees, setting off a chain of events that spiral hilariously out of control.

From entanglements with a reformed cartel leader-turned-pastry chef to mishaps involving Pablo Escobar's pet rhino, Act One of Pablo’s Rhino introduces a midlife crisis comedy where absurdity reigns and every decision leads to deeper chaos.

Starring:

Written by Craig Goodwill & Sam Ruano, Pablo’s Rhino is an over-the-top, fast-talking, tequila-soaked thrill ride that blends midlife crises with international escapades, delivering a story as unpredictable as it is entertaining.

Official Table Read Merch: https://thetablereadpodcast.myshopify.com/

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