New Scripted Comedy Series, “The Rubber Room,” Featuring Some of the Biggest Stars in Comedy, Available Now Exclusively on SiriusXM and Stitcher Premium

Starring Alison Pill, David Cross, Andy Daly, Becky Drysdale, Alex English, Erik Griffin, Tony Hale, Bobby Lee, Natasha Leggero, Al Madrigal, Patton Oswalt, and Melle Powers

“The Rubber Room” locks listeners inside a New York City detention center for wayward teachers, where they’ll discover a hilarious cast of criminals, frauds and innocents

NEW YORK – August 22, 2022 – SiriusXM announced today the launch of The Rubber Room, a new scripted comedy series that explores the lives of some bad apples from New York City’s public school system who have been locked away in a “rubber room,” a purgatory-like detention hall for wayward teachers. All eight episodes of the new show are available now on the SXM App and Stitcher Premium, and starting today SiriusXM Raw Dog Comedy channel 99 will air one episode a week every Monday morning at 10:00 am ET. 

Actress Alison Pill (Star Trek: Picard, The Newsroom) stars in the dark comedy series as “Lindsey Whittle,” a young, idealistic public school teacher who is framed for drug possession by her fellow teachers and then transferred to a rubber room – based on the real life version in New York City. While there, she must try to clear her name while she navigates her way through the surreal, prison-like environment filled with absurd, frequently corrupt characters. The all-star cast includes David Cross, Andy Daly, Becky Drysdale, Alex English, Erik Griffin, Tony Hale, Bobby Lee, Natasha Leggero, Al Madrigal, Patton Oswalt, and Melle Powers.

The Rubber Room is produced by All Things Comedy, Civilian 7 Entertainment and Evan Shapiro. The series was created, written, and directed by Jon Katz and Stephen Ruddy. Listeners can sample the new series by clicking here.

“If you like con artists, bird nuggets, and asbestos, you will love this show,” said Alison Pill.

“The Rubber Room is a wild, wholly original experience,” said Jack Vaughn, SiriusXM’s Senior Vice President of Comedy Programming. “All Things Comedy did an amazing job producing the series, which gives listeners a ‘captivating’ sense of what it’s like to be locked in a room with such an absurd group of characters, played by some of the most talented and hilarious stars in the industry.”

The Rubber Room begins with Lindsey reporting to a detention center housed in a rundown, vacant elementary school that contains teachers removed for mere incompetence, as well as hardened criminals, frauds who relish getting paid for doing nothing, and Lindsey, an innocent victim of school politics. It’s a school with no students, and the “inmates” must report every day until their cases are resolved. Teachers sleep on the floor, establish dominance, mount their defenses, and while away the time, much like in a real prison.

Throughout her time in the rubber room, Lindsey encounters a wild cast of characters:

• Patton Oswalt plays Coach K, a drill sergeant-like high school gym teacher, who whips the inmates into shape.
  
  
• Natasha Leggero plays Stella Marconi, a seasoned scam artist serving time for stealing classroom globes from the Department of Education and selling them on the black market.
  
  
• Bobby Lee plays Trevor Wade, a handsome charmer who may or may not be a serial killer, sent away for serving alcohol to students while directing an all-nude grade school production of HAIR.
  
  
• Andy Daly plays Michael ‘Blue’ Balls, a wise, grizzled rubber room lifer doing his best Shawshank Redemption, all while sniffing copier toner.
  
  
• David Cross plays David Rockwell, Lindsey’s corrupt union rep who is more interested in milking the system than proving her innocence.
   
• Erik Griffin plays Principal Phineas Towers, a strict disciplinarian who runs the rubber room with a warden-like demeanor.
  
  
• Al Madrigal plays Will Turner, a legit slacker with zero backbone, who got into teaching for the summers off and is 100% guilty of going to work high.
  
  
• Tony Hale plays Merton Woods, an incompetent chemistry teacher enlisted by Blue to make meth in the rubber room.
  
  
• Becky Drysdale plays Mad Dog, the violent jailhouse bully with a penchant for wedgies.
  
  
• Melle Powers plays Priscilla Denton, a book-burning librarian, and Ms. Brownlow, who runs the rubber room’s shirtwaist-making sweatshop.
• Alex English plays Assistant Principal Warburg, Principal Towers’ loyal enforcer.

All half-hour episodes of The Rubber Room are available now on the SXM App and Stitcher Premium, and they’ll also air Mondays on SiriusXM Raw Dog Comedy Channel 99 at 10:00 am, 2:00 pm and 10:00 pm ET. 

SiriusXM Raw Dog Comedy features the best uncensored comedy. Listeners can hear stand-up from today's rising comedy stars, as well as original talk, documentary and other special comedy programming.

About All Things Comedy
Founded by Bill Burr and Al Madrigal, All Things Comedy (ATC) is owned and operated by comedians, giving each comedian not only the opportunity to create the content they think is funny but to take ownership in the company that distributes it. Today, ATC is the leading comedy podcast network featuring shows hosted by some of the best comedians in the business. After experiencing rapid audience growth over the past five years, ATC has had success in creating digital series, as well as a development slate for television, original podcasts and feature distribution.

ATC is currently in production on the feature film, Old Dads, Bill Burr’s directorial debut for Miramax, and produced the Emmy-nominated Roku series, Immoral Compass, and the documentary film, Patrice O’Neal: Killing Is Easy, in collaboration with Comedy Central.  Since 2020, ATC has premiered several podcasts including OMG Hi! With George Lopez, Laughing with Myself with Melissa Villaseñor, Welcome To Friday, Nate Bargatze’s Nateland, Anthony Jeselnik’s Jeselnik & Rosenthal Vanity Project, Gettin Better with Ron Funches, and Breaking Bread with Tom Papa.  Recent ATC-produced stand-up specials include the Netflix specials Nicole Byer: BBW (Big Beautiful Weirdo), Bill Burr: Live At Red Rocks, Whitney Cummings: Can I Touch It?, and Ronnie Chieng: Asian Comedian Destroys America.  ATC produced the Comedy Central series, Bill Burr Presents: The Ringers, and three one-hour stand-up specials for the network.

For more on ATC visit the website, subscribe to the ATC YouTube page and follow ATC on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

About Jon Katz and Civilian 7 Entertainmen
Co-creator and co-writer of The Rubber Room, Jon Katz is founder of Civilian 7 Entertainment, an independent television and motion picture company.  He is currently producing the feature drama Catching Dust starring Erin Moriarty, Jai Courtney, Dina Shihabi, and Ryan Corr, as well as several television projects.  His past credits include HBO’s Paterno starring Al Pacino, and The Man Who Knew Infinity starring Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons.

www.civilian7entertainment.com

About Stephen Ruddy
​​Stephen Ruddy is the co-creator and co-writer of The Rubber Room. He also created Gravid Water, which has run at the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York and LA for over 15 years with many of the biggest names in comedy and acting, as well as Stolen House, a theatrical hit in New York and Chicago. He works for The Moth, and his writing and journalism appear in McSweeeney’s, The New York Times, USA Today, and more.

About Evan Shapiro
Evan Shapiro is an Emmy and Peabody Award winning producer of many funny things, including Portlandia and Harmonquest. He is also a professor at NYU and Fordham schools of business, as well as the co-host of the Cancel Culture Podcast.

About SiriusXM
Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) is the leading audio entertainment company in North America, and the premier programmer and platform for subscription and digital advertising-supported audio products. SiriusXM’s platforms collectively reach approximately 150 million listeners, the largest digital audio audience across paid and free tiers in North America, and deliver music, talk, news, comedy, entertainment and podcasts. SiriusXM offers the most extensive lineup of professional and college sports in audio. Pandora, a subsidiary of SiriusXM, is the largest ad-supported audio entertainment streaming service in the U.S. SiriusXM's subsidiaries Stitcher, Simplecast and AdsWizz make it a leader in podcast hosting, production, distribution, analytics and monetization. The Company’s advertising sales arm, SXM Media, leverages its scale, cross-platform sales organization, and ad tech capabilities to deliver results for audio creators and advertisers. SiriusXM, through Sirius XM Canada Holdings, Inc., also offers satellite radio and audio entertainment in Canada. In addition to its audio entertainment businesses, SiriusXM offers connected vehicle services to automakers. For more about SiriusXM, please go to: www.siriusxm.com. 

Source: SiriusXM

Media contacts:

Danielle Lynn
Danielle.Lynn@siriusxm.com

Chelsea Kaufman
Chelsea.Kaufman@siriusxm.com