Casting Call — Maren Cole New Gods of Sablehook — Principal Co-Host, Season-Long

THE HOOK

Below the Fold is a weekly national show — the kind you have heard before, the kind that lives in your phone next to your favorites. Maren Cole has co-hosted it for years. This season she is following a small-town drama teacher into a story the rest of the press buried.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

New Gods of Sablehook is a 12-episode scripted fiction podcast set in the small town of Sablehook, Washington, where 4,371 people vanished in a single day in April 2026. The show is presented through a layered, in-world structure — a national investigative podcast, a local late-night radio program, and the voices of the town's remaining residents — as it works toward an answer the rational world is not equipped to give.

The tone target is grounded, character-driven fiction with an undertow of the strange. We are not making a horror anthology. We are making a show about people who live near something they do not have language for.

WHO WE ARE

Apocrypha Productions was founded by friends Tobias SK Cichon and Brent LaRowe in the Rabid Brewing taproom in Chicago, IL — a bastion for the artistic and strange. We're in it for the creative fun, and for the satisfaction of making professional productions we dream up ourselves. It matters to us that everyone involved is having a good time.

THE ROLE

Maren Cole — 30s to 40s, female. Co-host of Below the Fold, a weekly radio show and podcast on which she and Rajan Cross invite independent journalists to deep-dive stories buried under the daily onslaught of political outrage. She is affiliated with CNN. The show has been on for years and is now running its episodes on the Great Disappearance of Sablehook.

Maren is very sharp and believes personal politics have far less to do with the reality of people's choices than most of her viewers would assume. She knows we live in a world of ethical penumbra and that we are all afflicted by the human condition.

She is the more analytical half of the hosting duo. Where her co-host leads with empathy, she leads with structure. She sees ethical complexity everywhere and is willing to sit with ambiguity longer than most journalists. Her skepticism is real but never dismissive — she chose this story because she believes it was buried unjustly.

WHAT WE ARE LISTENING FOR

• A real-person host, not generic prestige-podcast cadence. No NPR mimicry.
• Surgical questions delivered without cruelty. She can make a guest feel both safe and exposed in the same sentence.
• Precise, probing, occasionally wry. Comfortable with on-mic transitions — handing off, picking up, the natural choreography of co-hosts.
• Range that supports a season-long arc: she begins the season at full professional distance and ends it considerably closer to the story.
• Responsiveness to live direction. Sessions are real-time; we will iterate on takes together in the moment.
• An ear for chemistry. Callbacks will pair shortlisted Marens with shortlisted Rajans, recorded together live.

SIDES

Two sides attached, both written as dialogue between Maren and Rajan. Record your half of each, leaving roughly the right amount of space for the other voice — we will hear how you handle the rhythm of a co-host exchange:

SIDE A — Episode Opener

The opening of a Below the Fold episode. You are introducing this season's story to your audience for the first time. Procedural, warm, settling in. The strangeness is still abstract.

MAREN: Welcome to Below the Fold. I'm Maren Cole.

RAJAN: And I'm Rajan Cross.

MAREN: Every week we bring you a story we think got buried — not by accident, exactly, but by the gravitational pull of louder stories that crowd the front page. This week's story has been buried for almost a year.

RAJAN: It's a story most of you have heard of and most of you have already stopped paying attention to.

MAREN: On April twenty-second of last year, four thousand three hundred and seventy-one people walked out of the town of Sablehook, Washington, and did not come back. That is one of those sentences I have now read aloud enough times that I have to remind myself, every time, that it is true. Four thousand three hundred and seventy-one people. Not metaphorically. Not in some news-cycle figurative sense. Literally walked out and were not seen again.

RAJAN: And our guest this season is the only person willing to keep asking what happened to them.

MAREN: Her name is Delilah Moore. She lost her family in the disappearance. She is, as of this recording, the only journalist still working the story. Delilah, welcome to the show.

SIDE B — Episode Closer (Late Season)

Late in the season. You and Rajan have been hearing testimony from Delilah for weeks. Something has just been described in this episode that neither of you has language for. You are still a host. You are also still a person.

MAREN: Delilah, thank you. We're going to take a break there. Or — I think I need to take a break there.

[pause]

RAJAN: Yeah.

[pause]

MAREN: I've been doing this job for fifteen years. Rajan and I have been doing this show together for nine. And I want to say something on this episode that I don't think I have ever said on this show before, which is that I no longer know what kind of story we are telling.

RAJAN: Yeah.

MAREN: I'm not — I'm not saying I believe everything we've been told. I want to be careful about that. But I am also not willing to sit here and pretend that I have a framework for what Delilah just described, because I don't. And I think it would be dishonest to act like I do.

RAJAN: I think that's right.

MAREN: We'll be back next week.

ESTIMATED RECORDING TIME

Maren appears in every episode — one of the most time-intensive roles in the cast. Plan on a substantial share of each recording day.

THE COMMITMENT

Season 1 is 12 episodes, recorded in focused pushes across roughly a year — not a weekly grind. It is a real, year-long commitment, and we treat it like one.

• Recording happens on full-day Saturdays in the South Chicagoland region, in pushes of two days at a time.
• The first two dates are Saturday, July 11 and Saturday, July 25, 2026. These start at 9am and can run long, so plan accordingly.
• Two more pairs of Saturdays follow at roughly quarterly intervals over the following nine months, with exact dates set together once the crew is locked.

Because recording days are few and full, we will confirm your availability for July 11 and July 25 early in the process. If you can't make both, this particular role may not be the right fit — tell us up front so no one's time is wasted.

HOW WE RECORD

All recordings are live-directed. We are not working in an async send-a-take, wait-a-day model — the producer and director are in the room with you and the other actors during the session, giving real-time direction and pickups.

You arrive on location in South Chicagoland; some sessions are recorded outdoors, others in a sound-controlled environment, and we handle all the equipment. You bring the talent.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

For your audition only: any clean home recording is fine. You need a quiet space and a microphone capable of delivering audio we can evaluate the performance on — a USB mic and the ability to send a clean take is plenty. For the actual recording sessions, we handle the gear; you just show up.

COMPENSATION

This art project is in its infancy, and compensating people fairly is a core value of both founders. We can deliver a full credit, a clip for your sizzle reel, and a team that treats your time and craft with respect.

If the project monetizes, we will share revenue with the cast, with specific terms formalized in a written agreement before any revenue is distributed. We will be transparent at every step.

Let's make some stories. — Tobias and Brent

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR AUDITION

• Record both attached sides at home, separated by about three seconds of silence.
• Send a single audio file (WAV preferred, MP3 acceptable) to [redacted].

Subject line: Sablehook — Maren — [Your Name]

• In the email body: your name, location, prior credits (if any — not required), a short note on why this role interested you, and confirmation that you can make both July 11 and July 25.

Deadline: Wednesday, June 24, 2026, 11:30 PM Central.

We respond to every submission, including those we cannot move forward with.

Casting Call — Delilah Moore New Gods of Sablehook — Principal Lead, Season-Long

THE HOOK

On April 22, 2026, 4,371 people walked out of the town of Sablehook, Washington, and did not come back. Delilah Moore was the high school drama teacher who lost her family among them. Now she is the only person willing to go back in with a microphone.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

New Gods of Sablehook is a 12-episode scripted fiction podcast set in the small town of Sablehook, Washington, where 4,371 people vanished in a single day in April 2026. The show is presented through a layered, in-world structure — a national investigative podcast, a local late-night radio program, and the voices of the town's remaining residents — as it works toward an answer the rational world is not equipped to give.

The tone target is grounded, character-driven fiction with an undertow of the strange. We are not making a horror anthology. We are making a show about people who live near something they do not have language for.

WHO WE ARE

Apocrypha Sound was founded by friends Tobias SK Cichon and Brent LaRowe in the Rabid Brewing taproom in Chicago, IL — a bastion for the artistic and strange. We're in it for the creative fun, and for the satisfaction of making professional productions we dream up ourselves. It matters to us that everyone involved is having a good time.

THE ROLE

Delilah Moore — late 30s to early 40s, female. A lifelong Sablehook resident: drama teacher at Harrow County High School for eleven years, theater manager, part-time librarian. She holds a journalism degree from Northern State University. She backed into investigative reporting through a play she was writing about her hometown — interviewing prominent townspeople for character research, then realizing her questions were pulling at threads she hadn't intended to find. The play remains unfinished. The investigation that replaced it may be unfinishable.

Her methodology is unusual and it is her greatest asset. She asks the questions a playwright asks, not the questions a journalist asks — she wants to know how people feel, what images come to mind, what they dream about. These turn out to be exactly the right questions for what she is investigating.

Delilah is the spine of the show. She narrates, she conducts interviews, and she appears as a recurring guest on the in-world national podcast Below the Fold. She is composed but fraying, self-aware about her own credibility gaps, and fiercely determined.

WHAT WE ARE LISTENING FOR

• A voice that can sit close to the microphone and feel intimate without going breathy or affected.

• Composure that the listener can tell is costing her something.

• The ability to play warm and watchful at the same time.

• Restraint — Delilah is the calm in the room, not the show's emotional weather.

• Range to crack: brief moments where the composure slips and then returns.

• Comfort with both long-form solo narration and interview dialogue.

• Responsiveness to live direction. Sessions are real-time; we will iterate on takes together in the moment.

SIDES

Three sides attached. Record all three, in any order, separated by about three seconds of silence:

• SIDE A — Narration (Opening)

  You are speaking directly into a recorder, alone. This is testimony, not performance. The listener is the only person who will hear this.

  [sound of a recorder clicking on, a pause, papers shuffling]

  My name is Delilah Moore.

  
  

  I was — I am — a resident of Sablehook. I taught drama at Harrow County High School for eleven years. Before that I studied journalism at Northern State, which feels like someone else's life now, but also feels like the only useful thing I've ever done.

  
  

  This is a record. I don't know yet if it's an investigation, a memorial, or a confession. 

  Possibly all three.

  
  

  I'm going to tell you what happened to Sablehook. I'm going to do my best to be accurate and fair and I'm going to fail at both of those things in ways I probably can't anticipate yet. I want you to know that going in.

  
  

  
  

  SIDE B — Interview

  You are interviewing a Sablehook resident about her late husband, who is among the vanished. She has been avoiding the question for several minutes. Your microphone is between you. You are kind. You are also not letting her off the hook. The other speaker's lines are abbreviated — you don't need to perform them; just leave space.

  
  

  DELILAH: I want to come back to something you said earlier. About the morning of the twenty-second.

  
  

  WOMAN: I told you everything I remember about that morning.

  
  

  DELILAH: You told me what you did. You haven't told me what he was like.

  
  

  [pause]

  
  

  WOMAN: I don't see how that's relevant to —

  
  

  DELILAH: I'm not asking as a reporter. I know I have the recorder on. But I'm asking as someone who lost people too. What was he like that morning.

  
  

  [long pause]

  
  

  WOMAN: He was… he was making coffee. He was humming.

  
  

  DELILAH: What was he humming?

  
  

  WOMAN: I don't — I don't remember the song.

  
  

  DELILAH: That's okay. (quieter) That's okay. We can come back to that.

  
  

  
  

  SIDE C — Alone, After

  The interview from Side B has ended. The woman has left. You are alone with the recorder. You forgot to turn it off — or you didn't. The composure is gone for a moment. Then it comes back.

  
  

  [sound of a door closing in the distance. A long exhale.]

  
  

  She was humming.

  
  

  [pause]

  
  

  My mother used to hum in the kitchen. I didn't think about that until just now. I'd forgotten she did that.

  
  

  [a breath that almost catches]

  
  

  I'm sorry. I'm — give me a second.

  
  

  [pause]

  
  

  Okay. I'm okay.

  That's enough for today, I think. We'll pick this up tomorrow.

  
  

  [sound of the recorder clicking off]

ESTIMATED RECORDING TIME

Delilah appears in every episode — she is the most time-intensive role in the cast. Plan on a heavy share of each recording day.

THE COMMITMENT

Season 1 is 12 episodes, recorded in focused pushes across roughly a year — not a weekly grind. It is a real, year-long commitment, and we treat it like one.

• Recording happens on full-day Saturdays in the South Chicagoland region, in pushes of two days at a time.

• The first two dates are Saturday, July 11 and Saturday, July 25, 2026. These start at 9am and can run long, so plan accordingly.

• Two more pairs of Saturdays follow at roughly quarterly intervals over the following nine months, with exact dates set together once the crew is locked.

Because recording days are few and full, we will confirm your availability for July 11 and July 25 early in the process. If you can't make both, this particular role may not be the right fit — tell us up front so no one's time is wasted.

HOW WE RECORD

All recordings are live-directed. We are not working in an async send-a-take, wait-a-day model — the producer and director are in the room with you and the other actors during the session, giving real-time direction and pickups.

You arrive on location in South Chicagoland; some sessions are recorded outdoors, others in a sound-controlled environment, and we handle all the equipment. You bring the talent.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

For your audition only: any clean home recording is fine. You need a quiet space and a microphone capable of delivering audio we can evaluate the performance on — a USB mic and the ability to send a clean take is plenty. For the actual recording sessions, we handle the gear; you just show up.

COMPENSATION

This art project is in its infancy, and compensating people fairly is a core value of both founders. We can deliver a full credit, a clip for your sizzle reel, and a team that treats your time and craft with respect.

If the project monetizes, we will share revenue with the cast, with specific terms formalized in a written agreement before any revenue is distributed. We will be transparent at every step.

Let's make some stories. — Tobias and Brent

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR AUDITION

• Record the three attached sides at home, separated by about three seconds of silence.

• Send a single audio file (WAV preferred, MP3 acceptable) to [redacted].

Subject line: Sablehook — Delilah — [Your Name]

• In the email body: your name, location, prior credits (if any — not required), a short note on why this role interested you, and confirmation that you can make both July 11 and July 25.

Deadline: Wednesday, June 24, 2026, 11:30 PM Central.

We respond to every submission, including those we cannot move forward with.

Casting Call — Rajan Cross New Gods of Sablehook — Principal Co-Host, Season-Long

THE HOOK

Below the Fold is a weekly national show — the kind you have heard before, the kind that lives in your phone next to the real ones. Rajan Cross has co-hosted it for years. He closes every episode with a sign-off that has become a small running motif. This season, that sign-off is going to mean something it never used to.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

New Gods of Sablehook is a 12-episode scripted fiction podcast set in the small town of Sablehook, Washington, where 4,371 people vanished in a single day in April 2026. The show is presented through a layered, in-world structure — a national investigative podcast, a local late-night radio program, and the voices of the town's remaining residents — as it works toward an answer the rational world is not equipped to give.

The tone target is grounded, character-driven fiction with an undertow of the strange. We are not making a horror anthology. We are making a show about people who live near something they do not have language for.

WHO WE ARE

Apocrypha Productions was founded by friends Tobias SK Cichon and Brent LaRowe in the Rabid Brewing taproom in Chicago, IL — a bastion for the artistic and strange. We're in it for the creative fun, and for the satisfaction of making professional productions we dream up ourselves. It matters to us that everyone involved is having a good time.

THE ROLE

Rajan Cross — 30s to 40s, male. Co-host of Below the Fold, a weekly radio show and podcast on which he and Maren Cole invite independent journalists to deep-dive stories buried under the daily onslaught of political outrage. He is affiliated with MSNBC. The show has been on for years and is now running its episodes on the Great Disappearance of Sablehook.

Rajan is both fiery and deeply concerned for the wellbeing of fellow humans. He has bursts of honest introspection that take people off guard and increase their respect for him.

Where his co-host analyzes, Rajan connects. He bleeds empathy and occasionally turns it on himself in ways that disarm everyone, including himself. He is the emotional barometer of Below the Fold — his reactions often signal to the audience how to feel about what they are hearing before the evidence fully lands.

Rajan's closing sign-off, used every episode: "Off the front page, under the radar, and far from over."

WHAT WE ARE LISTENING FOR

• A real-person host, not generic prestige-podcast cadence. No NPR mimicry.
• Warm, direct, occasionally volcanic. Can pivot from a joke to genuine moral outrage in a single breath.
• Introspective moments that are quiet and unexpected. When he goes silent after a piece of testimony, it should mean more than most people's monologues.
• Comfort with on-mic transitions — handing off, picking up, the natural choreography of co-hosts.
• Range that supports a season-long arc: he begins at full professional distance and ends it considerably closer to the story.
• Responsiveness to live direction. Sessions are real-time; we will iterate on takes together in the moment.
• An ear for chemistry. Callbacks will pair shortlisted Rajans with shortlisted Marens, recorded together live.

SIDES

Two sides attached, both written as dialogue between Rajan and Maren. Record your half of each, leaving roughly the right amount of space for the other voice — we will hear how you handle the rhythm of a co-host exchange:

SIDE A — Episode Opener

The opening of a Below the Fold episode. You are introducing this season's story to your audience for the first time. Procedural, warm, settling in. The strangeness is still abstract. Side ends on your sign-off — the line you close every episode with.

MAREN: Welcome to Below the Fold. I'm Maren Cole.

RAJAN: And I'm Rajan Cross.

MAREN: Every week we bring you a story we think got buried.

RAJAN: It's a story most of you have heard of and most of you have already stopped paying attention to. The kind of story that, when you bring it up at a dinner party, somebody says, oh, right, didn't they all join a cult or something. And then you have to say, no, actually, and then you have to spend the next twenty minutes explaining that what you mean by no is that nobody knows what happened, which is not the same as nothing happened.

MAREN: Our guest this season is the only person willing to keep asking what happened to them.

RAJAN: She has not, to be very clear, been getting a lot of help. Not from law enforcement, not from the press, not from the federal investigators who initially responded and then — and this is going to be a recurring theme this season — stopped responding.

MAREN: Her name is Delilah Moore. She lost her family in the disappearance. Delilah, welcome to the show.

[brief pause as the host beat resolves]

RAJAN: Off the front page, under the radar, and far from over. Let's get into it.

SIDE B — Episode Closer (Late Season)

Late in the season. You and Maren have been hearing testimony from Delilah for weeks. Something has just been described in this episode that neither of you has language for. You are still a host. You are also still a person.

MAREN: Delilah, thank you. We're going to take a break there. Or — I think I need to take a break there.

[pause]

RAJAN: Yeah.

[pause]

MAREN: I want to say something on this episode that I don't think I have ever said on this show before, which is that I no longer know what kind of story we are telling.

RAJAN: Yeah.

MAREN: I am not willing to sit here and pretend that I have a framework for what Delilah just described, because I don't.

RAJAN: I think that's right. I think — Maren, you and I have spent our entire careers being suspicious of the word "unprecedented". We've watched it get used to dress up things that were extremely precedented. And so I want to be careful right now. But I also want to say — for the record, on tape — that I don't have a word for this either. And I'd rather sit here in the silence of not having a word for it than borrow one that's wrong.

[pause]

RAJAN: Off the front page, under the radar, and far from over.

ESTIMATED RECORDING TIME

Rajan appears in every episode — one of the most time-intensive roles in the cast. Plan on a substantial share of each recording day.

THE COMMITMENT

Season 1 is 12 episodes, recorded in focused pushes across roughly a year — not a weekly grind. It is a real, year-long commitment, and we treat it like one.

• Recording happens on full-day Saturdays in the South Chicagoland region, in pushes of two days at a time.
• The first two dates are Saturday, July 11 and Saturday, July 25, 2026. These start at 9am and can run long, so plan accordingly.
• Two more pairs of Saturdays follow at roughly quarterly intervals over the following nine months, with exact dates set together once the crew is locked.

Because recording days are few and full, we will confirm your availability for July 11 and July 25 early in the process. If you can't make both, this particular role may not be the right fit — tell us up front so no one's time is wasted.

HOW WE RECORD

All recordings are live-directed. We are not working in an async send-a-take, wait-a-day model — the producer and director are in the room with you and the other actors during the session, giving real-time direction and pickups.

You arrive on location in South Chicagoland; some sessions are recorded outdoors, others in a sound-controlled environment, and we handle all the equipment. You bring the talent.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

For your audition only: any clean home recording is fine. You need a quiet space and a microphone capable of delivering audio we can evaluate the performance on — a USB mic and the ability to send a clean take is plenty. For the actual recording sessions, we handle the gear; you just show up.

COMPENSATION

This art project is in its infancy, and compensating people fairly is a core value of both founders. We can deliver a full credit, a clip for your sizzle reel, and a team that treats your time and craft with respect.

If the project monetizes, we will share revenue with the cast, with specific terms formalized in a written agreement before any revenue is distributed. We will be transparent at every step.

Let's make some stories. — Tobias and Brent

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR AUDITION

• Record both attached sides at home, separated by about three seconds of silence.
• Send a single audio file (WAV preferred, MP3 acceptable) to [redacted].

Subject line: Sablehook — Rajan — [Your Name]

• In the email body: your name, location, prior credits (if any — not required), a short note on why this role interested you, and confirmation that you can make both July 11 and July 25.

Deadline: Wednesday, June 24, 2026, 11:30 PM Central.

We respond to every submission, including those we cannot move forward with.

Casting Call — Matthias Weber New Gods of Sablehook — Recurring, Multi-Episode

THE HOOK

The Broken Owl is a gas station combined with what is widely regarded as the most revered underground vinyl record store in the country. It sits at the very edge of Sablehook — the last stop before the mountains. Matthias Weber runs it. He has been there for years. He may have been the one person who could have stood at that border and negotiated between both sides. He is among the vanished.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

New Gods of Sablehook is a 12-episode scripted fiction podcast set in the small town of Sablehook, Washington, where 4,371 people vanished in a single day in April 2026. The show is presented through a layered, in-world structure — a national investigative podcast, a local late-night radio program, and the voices of the town's remaining residents — as it works toward an answer the rational world is not equipped to give.

The tone target is grounded, character-driven fiction with an undertow of the strange. We are not making a horror anthology. We are making a show about people who live near something they do not have language for.

WHO WE ARE

Apocrypha Productions was founded by friends Tobias SK Cichon and Brent LaRowe in the Rabid Brewing taproom in Chicago, IL — a bastion for the artistic and strange. We're in it for the creative fun, and for the satisfaction of making professional productions we dream up ourselves. It matters to us that everyone involved is having a good time.

THE ROLE

Matthias Weber — male, weathered storyteller's voice (age range flexible; established adult, not young). Proprietor of The Broken Owl, a combined gas station and underground vinyl record store at the literal edge of Sablehook. A beloved community figure: gregarious, generous, deeply knowledgeable about music and cinema. People stop in for gas and leave an hour later having heard three records and a story. He is the kind of person a town does not know it is organized around until he is gone.

He loves cinema and the new golden age of television. He is intimately familiar with the mountains and speaks about the strangeness near them with the casualness of a man who has lived on that border his whole life and felt it changing. His interview with Delilah — recorded months before the disappearance, for a play she was writing — becomes the most important piece of audio in her archive.

In his Episode 1 interview, Matthias performs the voices of three other characters in his story — a Hollywood actor, a stoned regular at the shop, and a ninety-year-old town fixture. The role requires the actor to slip in and out of these other voices naturally, as a real storyteller would, without committing to full impersonation.

WHAT WE ARE LISTENING FOR

• A warm baritone (or comparable) with natural raconteur energy. Texture in the voice — age, weather, lived-in quality.
• A storyteller's rhythm: pause, double back, let a detail land. Loose, profane when comfortable, generous with laughter.
• A laugh that makes the listener like him before he finishes his first sentence.
• The ability to land humor and menace in the same story without tonal whiplash. The interview is funny on the surface and unsettling underneath — both must be playable at once.
• Light vocal flexibility to suggest other characters inside his retelling without leaning into full impersonation. Three brief voices: a rattled actor, a slow-talking shop regular, a muttering ninety-year-old.
• Comfort being recorded in a relaxed setting. The character drinks beer during the interview and does not perform for the recorder — that ease has to read in the audio.
• Responsiveness to live direction. Sessions are real-time; we will iterate on takes together in the moment.

SIDES

One longer side attached, with two brief moments where Matthias quotes other characters:

SIDE A — The Broken Owl Interview

Matthias is being interviewed by Delilah about Sablehook for a theater production. She has asked him for the story that best captures the essence of the town. He has just finished introducing his answer — a story about a B-list actor named Carter Hale who came into his record shop one afternoon. The tone here is loose, warm, a little profane. Partway through, something shifts.

So, then I'm talking to the guy about — what was it — oh yeah, it was the MC5 and Death. Guy was really into the old Detroit punk scene. So right as he's telling me that places like The Owl are the only places that feel real to him anymore, on account of his celebrity I guess, Klipper — who had just left the store — comes bursting back in and says, [imitating slow stoned voice] "Matthias, the mountain is creeping again."

[short pause to let the tone change. Cracks open a beer and takes a swig.]

Now, Hale is confused and wants to know what we're on about, so he follows me and Klip outside.

Old Joe is up on his feet. Smokin' his damn pipe. Starin' across the road at the tree line. None of us say anything. But Carter Hale goes, "What am I looking at?" Klip turns to him and says, trying to sound smart or officious or something — [imitating Klipper again ] "Well, despite what most people say, it's a lot more than Big Foot."

[chuckles]

This of course confuses Hale even more.

[laughs]

So Carter Hale has about the dumbest look I've ever seen on his face and he steps closer to the road, just past the pumps, and Old Joe calls out, [muttering, smoke-cracked] "Don't do it, Morbius."

The guy turns around on Old Joe and waves his hands like this and shakin' his head as if to say, what the hell is the matter with you, old man? Then he looks back at the trees and you could see something changed in his body. 'Cause he saw something out there.

He starts pointing. Not saying anything. I think the words in his mouth just stopped working. But he's pointing right where we all saw the mountain creeping.

[pause. Another swig.]

So I say to him, "Alright, Carter, come on back now." And he did.

ESTIMATED RECORDING TIME

Matthias is a recurring role across multiple episodes, including the season opener — where his interview is the central piece of audio and his heaviest work. His later appearances are shorter. Expect a substantial block on the first recording day, lighter sessions after.

THE COMMITMENT

Season 1 is 12 episodes, recorded in focused pushes across roughly a year — not a weekly grind. As a recurring role, Matthias won't be needed on every recording day, but the work is spread across the season, so it is still a real, multi-month commitment.

• Recording happens on full-day Saturdays in the South Chicagoland region, in pushes of two days at a time.
• The first two dates are Saturday, July 11 and Saturday, July 25, 2026. These start at 9am and can run long. Matthias's pilot interview lands in this first push, so plan to be available.
• Further recording days follow at roughly quarterly intervals over the following nine months, with exact dates set together once the crew is locked. We'll tell you which ones you're needed for as the schedule firms up.

Because recording days are few and full, we will confirm your availability for the dates you're needed early in the process — starting with July 11 and July 25. Tell us up front if those are a problem so no one's time is wasted.

HOW WE RECORD

All recordings are live-directed. We are not working in an async send-a-take, wait-a-day model — the producer and director are in the room with you and the other actors during the session, giving real-time direction and pickups.

You arrive on location in South Chicagoland; some sessions are recorded outdoors, others in a sound-controlled environment, and we handle all the equipment. You bring the talent.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

For your audition only: any clean home recording is fine. You need a quiet space and a microphone capable of delivering audio we can evaluate the performance on — a USB mic and the ability to send a clean take is plenty. For the actual recording sessions, we handle the gear; you just show up.

COMPENSATION

This art project is in its infancy, and compensating people fairly is a core value of both founders. We can deliver a full credit, a clip for your sizzle reel, and a team that treats your time and craft with respect.

If the project monetizes, we will share revenue with the cast, with specific terms formalized in a written agreement before any revenue is distributed. We will be transparent at every step.

Let's make some stories. — Tobias and Brent

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR AUDITION

• Record the attached side at home.
• Send a single audio file (WAV preferred, MP3 acceptable) to [redacted].

Subject line: Sablehook — Matthias — [Your Name]

• In the email body: your name, location, prior credits (if any — not required), a short note on why this role interested you, and confirmation that you can make both July 11 and July 25.

Deadline: Wednesday, June 24, 2026, 11:30 PM Central.

We respond to every submission, including those we cannot move forward with.

Casting Call — Gwen Hadley New Gods of Sablehook — Principal, Recurring Throughout

THE HOOK

Night Signal is the late-night show on Sablehook's only radio station. Gwen Hadley has been the voice on the air there for years. She started by playing music and taking calls from insomniacs. She kept the lines open, and people kept calling. By accident, her show became the most complete archive of strangeness anyone has.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

New Gods of Sablehook is a 12-episode scripted fiction podcast set in the small town of Sablehook, Washington, where 4,371 people vanished in a single day in April 2026. The show is presented through a layered, in-world structure — a national investigative podcast, a local late-night radio program, and the voices of the town's remaining residents — as it works toward an answer the rational world is not equipped to give.

The tone target is grounded, character-driven fiction with an undertow of the strange. We are not making a horror anthology. We are making a show about people who live near something they do not have language for.

WHO WE ARE

Apocrypha Productions was founded by friends Tobias SK Cichon and Brent LaRowe in the Rabid Brewing taproom in Chicago, IL — a bastion for the artistic and strange. We're in it for the creative fun, and for the satisfaction of making professional productions we dream up ourselves. It matters to us that everyone involved is having a good time.

THE ROLE

Gwen Hadley — late 30s, female. Sablehook native, high school classmate and friend of series anchor Delilah Moore. Host of Night Signal, a late-night radio show that began as a traditional small-town format — music and calls from locals. As strange happenings in Sablehook intensified, she expanded her call-in segments to expose and share the pattern of weird she was seeing. She didn't plan to become essential. She just kept the lines open.

Night Signal evolved into something Gwen did not have a name for: an accidental documentary of a countdown nobody knew they were counting down. Her archive of recordings becomes increasingly central to Delilah's investigation across the season.

Her friendship with Delilah is load-bearing and complicated. Delilah needs Gwen's archive; Gwen has her own custodial relationship to that material. Tension between them is real and productive.

WHAT WE ARE LISTENING FOR

• A radio voice that is performative on the air and recognizably the same person off it.
• Warm, community-oriented cadence — the easy rhythm of someone who has been talking to her neighbors on-air for years.
• Comfort with long-form solo narration. She does extended monologues on the air.
• A second register: when she is talking to Delilah alone, the host falls away. We need to hear the friend.
• Range that holds across the season's escalation. Her warmth does not disappear as the strangeness intensifies — it becomes the thing that makes the strange calls bearable. She is the human container for other people's terror.
• Responsiveness to live direction. Sessions are real-time; we will iterate on takes together in the moment.

SIDES

Two sides attached. Record both, separated by about three seconds of silence:

SIDE A — On the Air

Night Signal Radio. Past midnight. You are mostly talking to yourself, the way late-night hosts do, with a small loyal insomniac audience listening. Gwen takes her show seriously — she just doesn't take herself seriously. The conspiratorial, slightly theatrical late-night-broadcast register of the DJ from The Warriors is somewhere in her ear; not impersonation, just influence. Mostly dry, wry, a little knowing. Toward the end, the wryness drops for half a beat into something else — then she pulls back.

[a song ending. The hum of an open mic.]

It is one-seventeen in the morning here at Night Signal. The phone has rung twice in the past hour, and I answered neither call, which I think speaks to the kind of host I am and the kind of professional standards I bring to this position. If you are one of the people who called, I'm sorry. I was thinking about something. I'll get the next one. Probably.

It's me, by the way. Gwen Hadley. Sablehook's preeminent and only late-night radio host. I am told by my mother that I have a face for radio, which is both insulting and accurate and one of the more useful pieces of feedback I have ever received in my life.

[brief pause]

If you are listening to me tonight from inside the town limits of Sablehook, Washington, then welcome, friend. I see you. I am you. We are all out here at the same hour, doing whatever it is we are doing instead of sleeping. If you are listening to me from somewhere else, I have questions about you. But you are welcome too.

I had a caller earlier — first one of the night, picked that one up — who told me she saw something in her backyard last week that she did not want to describe on the air. Wouldn't tell me what it was. Just wanted me to know she'd seen it, and that I should keep doing what I'm doing. Which is — 

[pause, almost too long]

Which is what, exactly, I'm not entirely sure. But thank you, friend. I will keep doing it. Whatever it is.

Here's a song.

SIDE B — Off the Air

Delilah has come by the station after Gwen's shift ended. You have known each other since high school. The host voice is gone. Gwen privately considers herself a trainwreck — but it doesn't actually show up in how she behaves; what shows up is dry humor and the kind of attention you can't fake. She is worried about her friend.

GWEN: You look like hell.

DELILAH: Thanks.

GWEN: I mean that with love. The way I would mean it about myself if I were brave enough to look at a mirror.

DELILAH: I know.

[pause]

GWEN: When's the last time you slept.

DELILAH: I sleep.

GWEN: That's not what I asked.

[pause]

GWEN: Look. I've got the recordings. I'll get them to you. I told you I would and I'm going to, because despite all available evidence I am actually a person who follows through on things. But you have to let me ask you something first, and you have to let me ask it like a friend. Not like a source. Not like — whatever I am to you right now in this whole thing.

DELILAH: Okay.

GWEN: What happens to you when you finish this.

[pause]

GWEN: I'm asking because I know what happens to me. I keep doing my show. I keep playing songs at two in the morning for people who don't call in. I keep going. That's — that's not heroic, it's not even particularly impressive, but it is mine and I know where I am.

[pause]

GWEN: I don't actually know what you do after this, Del. And I think you don't either. And [quieter, no longer trying to be funny] that scares me more than the rest of it.

ESTIMATED RECORDING TIME

Gwen enters the story in the early episodes — her Night Signal archive is woven through them — and recurs across the season, some stretches heavier than others. Her scenes with Delilah are central to the show, so we'll want you present at the July recording days to build that chemistry live, whether or not your own episodes record on a given day.

THE COMMITMENT

Season 1 is 12 episodes, recorded in focused pushes across roughly a year — not a weekly grind. It is a real, year-long commitment, and we treat it like one.

• Recording happens on full-day Saturdays in the South Chicagoland region, in pushes of two days at a time.
• The first two recording dates are Saturday, July 11 and Saturday, July 25, 2026. These start at 9am and can run long, so plan accordingly.
• Two more pairs of Saturdays follow at roughly quarterly intervals over the following nine months, with exact dates set together once the crew is locked. We'll tell you which ones you're needed for as the schedule firms up.

Gwen's relationship with Delilah is at the heart of the show, and we build that in the room. Plan to be present for both July 11 and July 25, even on a day your own scenes may not record — being there is how the two voices find each other. If those Saturdays won't work, tell us up front so no one's time is wasted.

HOW WE RECORD

All recordings are live-directed. We are not working in an async send-a-take, wait-a-day model — the producer and director are in the room with you and the other actors during the session, giving real-time direction and pickups.

You arrive on location in South Chicagoland; some sessions are recorded outdoors, others in a sound-controlled environment, and we handle all the equipment. You bring the talent.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

For your audition only: any clean home recording is fine. You need a quiet space and a microphone capable of delivering audio we can evaluate the performance on — a USB mic and the ability to send a clean take is plenty. For the actual recording sessions, we handle the gear; you just show up.

COMPENSATION

This art project is in its infancy, and compensating people fairly is a core value of both founders. We can deliver a full credit, a clip for your sizzle reel, and a team that treats your time and craft with respect.

If the project monetizes, we will share revenue with the cast, with specific terms formalized in a written agreement before any revenue is distributed. We will be transparent at every step.

Let's make some stories. — Tobias and Brent

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR AUDITION

• Record both attached sides at home, separated by about three seconds of silence.
• Send a single audio file (WAV preferred, MP3 acceptable) to [redacted].

Subject line: Sablehook — Gwen — [Your Name]

• In the email body: your name, location, prior credits (if any — not required), a short note on why this role interested you, and a note on which recording Saturdays you can make.

Deadline: Wednesday, June 24, 2026, 11:30 PM Central.

We respond to every submission, including those we cannot move forward with.