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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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