Gwen Hadley

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.