WHAT IS RIDESHARE?

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"You're a stranger, so who are you going to tell?"

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RideShare is a new web series that takes you inside the car and inside the world of driving for ridesharing services. Created by real-life driver Jeff Irlbeck and real-life frequent ride sharing passenger Katie Hunter, each episode is completely improvised. With the help of writer Ian Michael Smith, the character and stories were conceived and distributed to the talented cast of actors who portray them. From funny to disturbing, each of RideShare’s episodes reveals what happens when people choose to share.

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A NOTE FROM KATIE (show-runner, co-creator)

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We set out to make a show about talking to a stranger. It can be scary. It can be liberating.  Meaningful human connection can happen in unexpected ways and in unexpected places.  Especially in the digital era where it is so easy to forgo any and all direct contact with other people, our show is a reminder that when you let someone in, even for five minutes, it can change your life. 

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The dialogue on our show was entirely improvised by the very talent cast of Chicago actors it features. The stories they tell are all based on real passengers picked up by our driver Jeff Irlbeck, and my co-writer Ian Michael Smith who both work as real-life Uber and Lyft drivers. We gave each actor a character, an objective, and a destination and then put them in a car with Jeff for 20 minutes. When we reviewed the footage, we discovered that the stories we originally set out to tell expanded in ways we never could have imagined.