THE UNDERSTUDY

What happens when you wish you were someone else... and the universe says bet?

Natalie Primavera has a million Instagram followers, perfect technique, and the lead role in every show. Ava Ross has a cracked phone, a nerdy boyfriend who dresses as naked Miley Cyrus, and a work-study job sweeping the dance studio.

One ancient snow globe. Two desperate wishes. And suddenly they wake up in each other's bodies.

There's just one problem: Natalie's body is now in a hospital bed with a shattered hip. And Ava's body? It's about to dance the Sugar Plum Fairy... with ankles like wet spaghetti.

What follows is the funniest, most chaotic Nutcracker rehearsal season in history. We're talking zombie cats, possessed dolls, a Romanian ballet master with a terrifying nine-year-old son, and a love triangle nobody asked for.

But underneath the chaos is something real: two girls discovering that the lives they envied aren't what they seemed, and that maybe the grass isn't greener, it's just... different grass.

The Understudy. It's Freaky Friday meets Center Stage, and it slaps.

Written by award-winning writer Jenna St. John.

Starring:

Kensington Tallman as Natalie Primavera

Logan Laurel as Ava Ross

Konstantin Lavysh as Mr. Constantine

Carson Bolde as Grayson Garcia

Sasha Knight as Trevor

Rita Dos Santos as Kenzie

Samantha A. Smith as Jasmine

Kearn Eva Binder as Zoe Dennings

Adele Abinante as Bean Ross

Avery Clyde as Mrs. Primavera

Katherine Brunk as Ms. Ross Brandon

Potter as Mr. Primavera

Sarah Elmaleh as Miss

Lana Miki Yamashita as Miss Miyako

Paula Tiso is the Narrator

Only on Table Read.

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The countdown to eleven builds like a pressure valve. Dizzy waits in the driveway holding on to hope. Kev hides nerves behind jokes. P keeps tugging at a shirt that has never felt right on his body. Everyone is pretending this morning will fix something they are too scared to name.

A car turns the corner and it is the wrong one. Dizzy breaks. Kev fires the blame at P. The friendship between them starts to shake. P disappears inside and comes back with a Sprite because it is the only comfort he knows how to offer at fourteen.

Then the sound hits. Guitar blasting out of an engine that should not exist in a town this small. The DeLorean pulls in for real. Dizzy lifts his head. Kev goes silent. P feels the world shift. Miss World steps out with a sunflower in her hair and for a moment everything feels possible.

She takes them on the ride they have been imagining all week. Kev laughs in the back. Dizzy shouts for more speed. P sits in the front seat trying to hold himself together. Miss World asks what they want from the future. Dizzy talks about cars. Kev talks about family. P cannot answer. Miss World waits. P finally admits he is afraid to look ahead. Kev jokes that P might not make it to adulthood. Miss World hears something deeper than the joke. She sees him.

When they return, nothing is magically fixed. But something inside P cracks open. He cannot keep disappearing into other people’s expectations. Not after being seen this clearly, even for a moment. Act Three is the ride, the break, and the first honest step toward who P is becoming.

SMALL BLOCK is a feature screenplay by Ashley Lauren, performed live and mixed like a feature film for your ears. From the award-winning team at TABLE READ / Manifest Media Productions.

Content Advisory: This episode contains suicidal ideation, transphobic and homophobic language, and minor fatphobic language, used intentionally to serve the story and its period portrayal.

New episodes drop Tuesdays. Subscribe now.

Cast (Full Feature):

P – Levi Dafferner

Kev – Kosi Eguchi

Bex – Piper Kingston

Dizzy – Deryck Hak

Miss World – Lydia Tinsley

Dad – Adam Pilver

Mrs. D – Gemma Kyle

Mom – Leah Zhang

Britt – Eric Miller

Tiff / Martha – Avery Norris

Mr. Welch / Kev’s Dad – Eddie Aguirre

Dan / Zach – Aidan Dick

Jack – Kellen Rose

James – Michael Amir Nash

Rob – Jack Murphy

Janet / Video Store Clerk – Sabrina Ariss

Narrator – Paula Tiso

Written by Ashley Lauren

Produced by Jack Levy, Mark Knell, and Shaan Sharma for TABLE READ / Manifest Media

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The morning after Homecoming week hits different. P wakes up at Dizzy’s house pretending everything is fine, even though nothing is fine. The letter from St. John’s is in his pocket like a weight. The DeLorean didn’t show. The note he wrote is still in his head.

Outside, Kev and Dizzy shoot hoops like the world is normal. P pretends right along with them. The kind of pretending every kid knows too well. Then real life barges in, and the moment they were waiting for disappears before it even starts.

At the video store, things get even tighter. Bex is behind the counter. Kev is cracking jokes that cut deeper than he realizes. P is trying to disappear inside a ruined shirt and a smile that doesn’t fit anymore.

He escapes to the back room, plays a fighting game, and chooses the one character who feels closest to the person he can’t say out loud. For a second, he can breathe. Then everything and everyone he’s avoiding walks right in.

Act Two is where the mask slips. Where jokes stop being jokes. Where P realizes he can’t keep pretending forever.

SMALL BLOCK is a feature screenplay by Ashley Lauren, performed live and mixed like a feature film for your ears. From the award-winning team at TABLE READ / Manifest Media Productions.

Content Advisory: This episode contains suicidal ideation, transphobic and homophobic language, and minor fatphobic language, used intentionally to serve the story and its period portrayal.

New episodes drop Tuesdays. Subscribe now.

Cast (Full Feature):

P - Levi Dafferner

Kev - Kosi Eguchi

Bex - Piper Kingston

Dizzy - Deryck Hak

Miss World - Lydia Tinsley

Dad - Adam Pilver

Mrs. D - Gemma Kyle

Mom - Leah Zhang

Britt - Eric Miller

Tiff / Martha - Avery Norris

Mr. Welch / Kev's Dad - Eddie Aguirre

Dan / Zach - Aidan Dick

Jack - Kellen Rose

James - Michael Amir Nash

Rob - Jack Murphy

Janet / Video Store Clerk - Sabrina Ariss

Narrator - Paula Tiso

Written by Ashley Lauren

Produced by Jack Levy, Mark Knell, and Shaan Sharma for TABLE READ / Manifest Media

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's Homecoming Weekend in North Texas, 1994. Fourteen-year-old P is barely holding it together, shaving a single whisker in the bathroom mirror, writing a note he almost can't take back, and dialing his best friend Kev before a Zippo flame turns fear into momentum.

At school, P's movie-trivia fluency sabotages Kev in a "battle of the sexes" quiz, earning heat from Kev and former best friend Bex. After class, the band - P, Kev, and Dizzy - argues Pantera vs. Korn, then mainlines '90s VHS nostalgia with Ace Ventura and The Crow.

Then the impossible slides by in stainless steel: a DeLorean. Its driver, "Miss World," knows her metal, quotes regrets, and won't take three teens on a joyride yet. She'll be back tomorrow at 11 A.M.

Under Friday-night lights, P pulls down a highlight-reel TD in a scrappy eighth-grade pickup game while Dizzy's hustling block saves the play. Back in the stands, P's parents pitch football and fitting in. P keeps tugging his shirt straight and his purple beanie low, but the question won't leave him alone: who is he allowed to be, especially if the words for it don't exist here?

SMALL BLOCK is a feature screenplay by Ashley Lauren, performed live and mixed like a feature film for your ears. From the award-winning team at TABLE READ / Manifest Media Productions.

Content Advisory: This episode contains suicidal ideation, transphobic and homophobic language, and minor fatphobic language, used intentionally to serve the story and its period portrayal.

New episodes drop Tuesdays. Subscribe now.

Cast (Full Feature):

P - Levi Dafferner

Kev - Kosi Eguchi

Bex - Piper Kingston

Dizzy - Deryck Hak

Miss World - Lydia Tinsley

Dad - Adam Pilver

Mrs. D - Gemma Kyle

Mom - Leah Zhang

Britt - Eric Miller

Tiff / Martha - Avery Norris

Mr. Welch / Kev's Dad - Eddie Aguirre

Dan / Zach - Aidan Dick

Jack - Kellen Rose

James - Michael Amir Nash

Rob - Jack Murphy

Janet / Video Store Clerk - Sabrina Ariss

Narrator - Paula Tiso

Written by Ashley Lauren

Produced by Jack Levy, Mark Knell, and Shaan Sharma for TABLE READ / Manifest Media

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

SMALL BLOCK — Trailer

A 14-year-old kid, a DeLorean, and a 90s world that doesn’t have the words for who he is yet.

Small Block isn’t nostalgia, it’s a gut-check of youth, identity, and music that could save your life or end it.

Performed live by an award-winning cast and mixed like a feature film for your ears.

From the Award-winning team at TABLE READ, this is cinema you can hear.

🎧 Listen now — new episodes drop every Tuesday

CAST

P – Levi Dafferner

Kev – Kosi Eguchi

Bex – Piper Kingston

Dizzy – Deryck Hak

Miss World – Lydia Tinsley

Dad – Adam Pilver

Mrs. D – Gemma Kyle

Mom – Leah Zhang

Britt – Eric Miller

Tiff / Martha – Avery Norris

Mr. Welch / Kev’s Dad – Eddie Aguirre

Dan / Zach – Aidan Dick

Jack – Kellen Rose

James – Michael Amir Nash

Rob – Jack Murphy

Janet / Video Store Clerk – Sabrina Ariss

Narrator – Paula Tiso

Written by Ashley Lauren

🎙️ Produced by Jack Levy, Mark Knell, and Shaan Sharma for TABLE READ / Manifest Media

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The TV clicks on.

Everything else clicks off.

The screen glows like the last church in hell. A newscaster reads order into chaos while the world decomposes behind him. Ben watches like a man staring at his own grave. Barbara, in Olivia Graham’s haunting performance, doesn’t watch at all. She’s already gone.

Then the floor creaks. Harry Cooper climbs out of the basement like ego in human form. Jim Connor gives him every ounce of misplaced authority. Behind him, Helen (Wendy Shapero) and their daughter—pale, bitten, doomed.

Romero stops making a zombie movie and starts the autopsy. The dead don’t kill the living. The living do that themselves.

Ben wants the boards. Harry wants the basement. Tom (Charlie Bodin) just wants peace. Every word is gasoline. Every silence is a match.

When dawn comes, it’s not rescue. It’s rifles.

One shot.

One mistake.

One truth.

Romero didn’t make horror. He made history.

Turn off the lights. Lock the doors.

Remember who the real monsters were.

CAST

Narrator: Jack Daniel

Ben: Zeke Alton

Barbara: Olivia Graham

Harry Cooper: Jim Connor

Helen Cooper: Wendy Shapero

Tom: Charlie Bodin

Sheriff McClelland: Rob Fitzgerald

Announcer: Adam Pilver

Ghouls: Natalia Castellanos & Josh Sterling

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.

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