Drew Spears Productions (DSP), the L.A. production house, studio, event livestream innovator and comedian collective has officially launched DSP Podcasts along with new podcast titles including Runiverse Weekly with Ru Anderson and Animalia with Charlie James and Griffin Kelly. DSP Podcasts will serve as the podcast production and distribution arm of this multi-faceted production company, known for its Frog Town brick and mortar studio and event space, and as a livestreaming partner to flagship L.A. events, including the recent reading by cast of The Pitt at the Writers Guild Association Benefit and Paul F. Tompkins’ renowned variety show Varietopia.
Per Drew Spears, “DSP is here to make comedy special again,” and he means it! Premiering October 8th, Runiverse Weekly will be a weekly episodic talk show podcast that will state and investigate Ru Anderson’s thesis of the week, exploring claims that range from “perversion is important” to “Ru’s cat, Miriam, is possessed by the devil.” The show will include expert guests, researched facts, and, of course, some personal stories and anecdotal evidence from Ru. Also launching soon, Animalia with Charlie James and Griffin Kelly is a chatty science comedy podcast hosted by animal enthusiasts who will present a different fascinating animal each week, making each other laugh and sharing stories from friends and fans.
Comics Reading Comics with Nick Malis & Shoshanna Green will be out later this fall, with launch date and more info to be announced. Each week the hosts and guests read and perform a truly ridiculous vintage comic book with the Comics Reading Comics Players, a troupe of hilarious performers, pausing along the way to provide jokes and commentary. There will also be interview segments with comedians including Dana Gould, Emo Philips, Blaine Capatch, and more about their relationship with comic books, as well as discussions with current comic book writers, artists, and collectors, so we can all learn more about the wonderful world of vintage comics.
These newly launching shows and hosts will receive a warm welcome home from their DSP Podcasts-mates currently releasing weekly episodes including Help Me Be Black with Skyler Higley, How Do You Get Through The Day with Will Hines and Ian Roberts, Mollyworld with Molly Lambert, No Contact with Hay Beacon, On God with Matt LeGrande, All These Wonderful Things from Cinema Eye Honors, and Paul Cherry’s Hidden Gems.
DSP is a brick and mortar comedy clubhouse for creators helping each other to pursue their most ambitious dreams, and an art collective finding their audience in a supportive, local-to-global community. In addition to being a studio and event space located in the now-comedy hub of Frog Town, DSP is a livestream innovator, offering L.A.-based events the reach of online distribution, and a podcast production and distribution house with DSP Podcasts.
Drew Spears started DSP in 2021 as a natural course of events springing from his work as a screen writer, actor and comedian. His year stuck in COVID isolation spring boarded his obsession with the tech of combining streaming, analog tech and vintage televisions. “I bought nine vintage TVs, put them together on the wall and wired them up so that I could feed my computer into them,” says Spears. This was just the start of the retro equipment he was amassing and studying. He built a space with his film school friend, Chad Bond, over the course of two years with the idea that they would be a hub for equipment and studio space rentals, or that they would be hired crews for one-off shoots.
But in a world where much of the middle class work for comedians was dropping off as the community lost numerous online comedy hubs and cable comedy channels, Spears found himself aiming his company’s mission in a direction that touched down in that space, with some crossover into the void left by record label hubs and musical collectives. Small, scrappy, and rooted in experimentation and a DIY ethic, DSP is led by founder Drew Spears with Langston Alimayu and Anya Solotaire running operations, and was built around a simple idea: a great live show shouldn’t disappear when the night ends.
Said Spears:
“I feel a need and responsibility to protect comedy. It has been on the rise through tech and social media, but it’s getting served on the same platforms as AI slop and content designed to fry our synapses. You can either treat comedy like expendable content, or you can treat it like something to be curated and worked for. We treat it like something to be curated and we want to work with people who cannot stop themselves from creating weird, esoteric things, because DSP is just the space to create them in.”
We look forward to seeing this new venture grow and spread comedy far and wide.
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