As writers fight to try to get their scripts read, one podcast is offering them a greater chance at capturing attention.
The Table Read podcast features scripts from emerging writers read by actors around Hollywood in a process akin to a typical table read, keeping in any flubbed lines, laughter and asides. In addition to giving writers greater reach, the podcast is also charting out a model in which the writers and actors share in their revenue.
“Part of what we will say to writers is ‘Listen, if you got an amazing story that’s not moving, that’s just sitting on your hard drive or sitting on the shelf, why don’t we bring it to life? And then if somebody listens to it and loves it, it may give it a new lease on life to be sold or produced,” says Shaan Sharma, a founder of the podcast.
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Sharma, who is also a SAG-AFTRA board member and actor on The Chosen, started organizing the table reads in person in 2017, at the request of some writer friends. He then began doing the reads through the SAG-AFTRA Los Angeles Conservatory to build relationships between union actors and writers and then began working with groups including The Blacklist and Coverfly. The table reads became popular among writers because each session includes food, props, trailers, decorations, cover sheets, and music inspired by the script as well as a support system around it.
The sessions had to move online during the pandemic, which then morphed into the idea for the podcast. The podcast began in 2022, with Jack Levy, who has worked in sound design and podcast production, and Mark Knell, who has worked in post-production, as partners with Sharma.
So far the podcast has produced about 60 episodes, with scripts that include television pilots and features and cover most genres, including comedies, dramas and period pieces, and is a top-charting fiction podcast on Apple Podcasts. The episodes includes scoring, sound effects and the breaks from the actors in order to make it feel like an authentic table read experience.
“We call in our community every Saturday and we put on almost like a party,” Knell says.
The scripts and the actors in them are mostly sourced from Levy, Knell and Sharma’s own connections and include seasonal scripts such as The Jew who Saved Christmas, with Jim O’Heir as a voice actor in it, a special 40th anniversary reading of Fright Night featuring Mark Hamill and Rosario Dawson as well as those from rising writers including Dominique Mouton, who is now executive producing a mockumentary pilot with two NFL stars.
One episode featured work from writer Tommy Wallach, who had been working with Ty Burrell’s production company Desert Whale to pitch his television pilot, PV & Franny, a surreal high school comedy. They initially had trouble finding a place for it to land and turned to the podcast in the hopes of getting it in front of more people, with a recording session that included Burrell reading stage directions, Fred Armisen, who is also attached to the project, and Kensington Tallman, who plays Riley in Inside Out 2. The script is still on the market, but the episode has provided Wallach with a “calling card,” that includes professional production design, as well as some original songs, that he said he’s used to give executives a better idea of the project.
“It’s hard to sell a TV show, and with something this odd, it was always gonna be hard, no matter what other options we had,” Wallach notes. “What is so wonderful about it is that it gives you another bite at the apple,”
The Table Read podcast was also one of the early signatories to SAG-AFTRA’s Independent Podcast Agreement, which gives actors a share in the podcast’s advertising revenue (which can then count toward their healthcare contributions) and also includes certain protections such as not using their voices to train AI models. A portion of the podcast’s advertising revenue is slated to be dispersed back to a talent pool that includes the actors, writers and other contributors.
If the script is sold and made into a TV show or movie or another project, Levy, Knell and Sharma get 5 percent of the back end.
The podcast has not yet made disbursements to the talent, as it only recently started to bring in its own advertisers, in addition to the ad placements from their podcasting platform, but hopes to soon. Each season costs the podcast, which covers all production expenses, mid-six figures and, as it stands, the podcast is getting about 200,000 certified downloads a week, which Sharma notes has been climbing.
The concept of Table Read is also being pitched as its own television show, after the co-founders signed a deal with ISH entertainment. But overall the goal is to grow the podcast into a brand that keeps getting writers’ stories heard.
“The hope is that we’re building kind of a wonderful library of stories, and that if our podcast continues to grow like it’s growing, then it’s even possible some of these stories will have a fan base or build up kind of an IP value that makes them even more marketable,” Sharma says.
