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 DaffernerKev - Kosi EguchiBex - Piper KingstonDizzy - Deryck HakMiss World - Lydia TinsleyDad - Adam PilverMrs. D - Gemma KyleMom - Leah ZhangBritt - Eric MillerTiff / Martha - Avery NorrisMr. Welch / Kev's Dad - Eddie AguirreDan / Zach - Aidan DickJack - Kellen RoseJames - Michael Amir NashRob - Jack MurphyJanet / Video Store Clerk - Sabrina ArissNarrator - Paula TisoWritten by Ashley LaurenProduced by Jack Levy, Mark Knell, and Shaan Sharma for TABLE READ / Manifest MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Small Block - Act One
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 DaffernerKev - Kosi EguchiBex - Piper KingstonDizzy - Deryck HakMiss World - Lydia TinsleyDad - Adam PilverMrs. D - Gemma KyleMom - Leah ZhangBritt - Eric MillerTiff / Martha - Avery NorrisMr. Welch / Kev's Dad - Eddie AguirreDan / Zach - Aidan DickJack - Kellen RoseJames - Michael Amir NashRob - Jack MurphyJanet / Video Store Clerk - Sabrina ArissNarrator - Paula TisoWritten by Ashley LaurenProduced by Jack Levy, Mark Knell, and Shaan Sharma for TABLE READ / Manifest MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Small Block | Trailer
SMALL BLOCK — TrailerA 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 TuesdayCAST 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 TisoWritten by Ashley Lauren 🎙️ Produced by Jack Levy, Mark Knell, and Shaan Sharma for TABLE READ / Manifest MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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NIGHT ON THE LIVING DEAD - ACT THREE “The Television Will Not Save You”
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 SterlingSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD - ACT TWO: "The House Fear Built"
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.CASTNarrator: Jack DanielBen / Truck Driver: Zeke AltonBarbara: Olivia GrahamHarry Tinsdale: Jim ConnorHelen Cooper: Wendy ShaperoTom: Charlie BodinSheriff McClelland: Rob FitzgeraldTV Commentator: Adam PilverZombies / Ghouls: Natalia Castellanos & Josh SterlingLight 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.
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. 👉 TableReadPodcast.com
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