COSTARD
&
TOUCHSTONE
Productions
Great Podcasts, No Foolin’!
OUR MISSION
Welcome to Costard & Touchstone Productions – our mission is to make the world a better place through storytelling!
We believe that all stories – especially great ones – have to be told the right way in order to truly become great. That’s our focus here at Costard & Touchstone – to tell every story the best way possible so that they can become truly great stories.
We dig deep into characters and what exactly makes them tick. The more interesting the character, the deeper we want to dig into them.
That’s what lies at the heart of great podcasts – and great podcasting! A storyteller’s dedication to telling great stories the best way possible!
OUR CURRENT LINEUP OF PODCASTS:
JOHN KIRIAKOU’S DEAD DROP: What Makes A Spy Tick?
In spy jargon, a dead drop is a way to ferry secret messages. In “John Kiriakou’s Dead Drop: What Makes A Spy Tick?”, former CIA officer John Kiriakou takes listeners deep inside the mind of a spy beginning with his own. What makes anyone a good spy? And why did John thrive going to dangerous places doing dangerous things? Whether sharing his own remarkable stories or drawing them from guests, these is a granular explorations of what it takes to thrive in a world of secrets where a single mis-step can get you killed, kidnapped or worse. And no one can frame, craft and tell these jaw-dropping stories like John Kiriakou.
JUST THE PHOTOGRAPHER
PULITZER PRIZE winning photojournalist DAVID SWANSON takes us into war zones (Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan), natural disasters (the 2021 earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katriina, the LA Wildfires) and even star-studded red carpet events to explain that though his pictures may show what it looked likestanding in those places taking news photos, they can’t tell you what it felt like standing there. Journalism meets personal journey.
THE HALL CLOSET
Donna Hall tells the harrowing story of growing up in a lower tier crime family outside of Philadelphia in the 1980’s and 90’s. It’s True Crime like you’ve never heard it before!
UNRAVELING ME
Everyone has the right to know where they really come from and who they really are. That’s the core premise behind Kara Rubinstein-Deyerin’s “Unraveling Me”. The unwitting victim of a DNA surprise, Kara interviews others who’ve experienced similarly unsettling changes to their personal stories: donor conceived people, people in the adoption community and people who’ve experienced non-paternal events and/or misattributed parentage. Unraveling Me will tell some truly remarkable stories about some truly remarkable people.
WHAT MAKES US LAUGH: A Serious Look At Being Funny
Comedian G D FENDERSON and Movie & TV writer/producer A L KATZ do a deep dive into both what makes them laugh personally and what makes us laugh culturally. The podcast is both a celebration of all things funny and an investigation into what is “funny” to begin with – and how do we go about translating what’s funny from our heads into an audience’s? Does everyone in fact even have a sense of humor to begin with? “What Makes Us Laugh” will make its audience laugh and think in equal measures.
SAGE WELLNESS WITHIN PODCAST
Dr. Andrea Thorpe both introduces Chinese medicine to a wider audience while explaining very clearly and elegantly what makes Chinese medicine so special and effective – especially for treating women’s health.
THE DONOR: A DNA HORROR STORY
The absolutely true story of Hal who worked his way through medical school in the mid 1980’s as an anonymous sperm donor. Jump forward 17 years. Hal joined 23AndMe, curious about is health genes. But adding his DNA to a growing DNA database destroyed Hal’s donor anonymity. Suddenly 7 total strangers found “daddy”. Except 6 of them had no idea their actual biological father was Hal – a sperm donor.
THE HOW NOT TO MAKE A MOVIE PODCAST
Our flagship (currently on hiatus) – True backstage stories of what really happens on the way to making movies and TV shows – told from the inside.
BE HAPPY NOW
Singer-writer-actor-producer-dancer Reesi Rocca shares her secrets to being happy now. Happiness isn’t a destination, it’s a process. And Reesi has learned lots of cool, useful and learnable tricks to help her navigate life’s inevitable challenges that she wants to teach you. “Be Happy Now” will empower its audience by giving them actionable things they can do every day to be happy now.
COMING SOON!
BILLVILLE
“BillVille: A Creative Memoir” is both a podcast memoir about actor, musician, songwriter and poet Bill Sadler’s remarkable creative life, and a memoir told creatively. In addition to his public career, Bill’s had a career as a son, a brother, a friend, a lover, a husband, father, neighbor, co-worker and.. lots of other things, too. Enough careers with enough people, places and experiences to fill a whole town! And that’s what BillVille is. Memoir as creative experience.
THE MECHANIC
Nick Mechanic has seen every side of Hollywood. As a high-powered talent agent, he made multi-million dollar deals and ran with the town’s most powerful people. But Nick’s demons and addictions got the better of him. He spent time in prison for dealing drugs. He was homeless and more or less given up for dead. But then he got sober. Nick began to get the better of his demons – the Hollywood ones included. Set free by the truth, Nick tells the completely unvarnished, brutally honest truth about what really happens behind the scenes in Hollywood – and about the struggles and unbelievable rewards of getting clean. Don’t say we didn’t warn ya!
A VERY CURIOUS PERSON with BRANDON ROUTH
Actor Brandon Routh (Superman Returns, Scott Pilgrim, ssss) grew up in a loving but emotionally restrained Midwestern family where curiosity wasn’t particularly encouraged. That didn’t mean Brandon wasn’t curious. He was – and has finally begun to indulge that deep-seated curiosity in adulthood. In “A Very Curious Person”, Brandon explores every nook and cranny of his curiosity – and the curiosity of various friends.
A SPY’S GUIDE TO…
Among other things spies do lots of is travel. Over the course of his career as a CIA officer, John Kariakou visited lots of the world’s great cities. While he appreciated each and every one of them as a great city, he also appreciated each as a work environment – for espionage. In this podcast, you’ll experience the great cities of the world from a whole new perspective – a spy’s.
GRAVE CONCERNS
Former CIA officer (and one of the best known spies in the world) John Kiriakou has always been fascinated by cemeteries – in particular, the people buried in them. In GRAVE CONCERNS, John shares his passion, taking the audience through his favorite cemeteries in order to tell the stories of the people buried there. But this isn’t about the famous names. This is about the less well-known. Their stories, it turns out, are even more interesting!
DIASPORA: The Podcast
Diasporas are far more common than we think! A diaspora occurs when any group of people are forced to leave the place they’ve called home. We all know of the Jewish diaspora, but there’s an Armenian diaspora, too, and an African-American diaspora (slavery), an Okie diaspora (the dustbowl), a Native American diaspora, a Chinese and an Indian diaspora among many, many others. And many other countries – in addition to America – also serve as diasporas for various diasporans. Diasporas change not only the diasporans, but the places they come from and the places they land. The biggest diaspora of all – the one already being caused by climate change – is upon us. “Diaspora: The Podcast is an epic series about an epic subject hosted by award-winning journalist/editorial cartoonist Ted Rall and podcaster/diasporan A L Katz.
BLUNT TRUTHS
Len May and A L Katz team to tell the “BLUNT TRUTHS” about cannabis, its illegalization and legalization, how it does what it does to our minds, how it’s helped people, how it’s harmed them, how it fosters creativity in some while creating paranoia in others. “Blunt Truths” is the be-all and end-all for cannabis-themed podcasts.
A SECRET WAR with Manila Chan
Lao-American Journalist MANILA CHAN wanted to tell the story of America’s secret war on Laos – America illegally bombed the country in secret every day for nine years during the Vietnam War – but could never get any traction from America’s legacy news media. In this very personal yet journalistically searing podcast, Manila tells both the story of that terribly under-reported piece of American history – “The Secret War” – and of her determined efforts to tell this story before it’s too late. That’s what makes this podcast “A SECRET WAR”.