Jeff Cannata and Jessica Lynn Parsons Dungeon Run | The Geekoning Ep 11

On this episode of The Geekoning Podcast Katya talks with Jeff Cannata, Dungeon Master, host, and all-around geek culture producer, and actress, show creator and host Jessica Lynn Parsons. They talk all about Caffeine a streaming service focused on gaming, geek culture, talk shows and sporting events and one show both Jeff and Jessica star in together The Dungeon Run.

The Dungeon Run is a Dungeons and Dragons, TTRPG series that has a different approach to DnD. It has the chat interact and decide how the show with move about, giving them not just a front seat during the campaign but a huge decision-making process. The interactivity is what makes The Dungeon Run so much different than many other Dungeons and Dragons campaigns because it allows the audience to experience the story-telling and suspense by encouraging them to take part in the story.

Jeff Cannata is The Dungeon Run’s Dungeon Master, leading the group of misfits through the adventure and voicing many NPCs. Jessica plays as Fahima Tadhg an 18-year-old fire genasi. You can catch both Jeff and Jessica on The Dungeon Run Wednesdays at 6 pm PT right on Caffeine.

Jeff Cannata has been working in the tech and entertainment field since the young age of 14, when he parlayed a Bay Area creative writing award into a job at the Contra Costa Times newspapers, reviewing computer and video games in a weekly syndicated column. His column even embraced the pre-Internet world of online interaction with a feature called Cannata ON-Line, which allowed readers to submit questions by dialing into a homebrew bulletin board service. Jeff’s column continued until he moved to Santa Barbara to attend UCSB, where he earned a BFA in Theatre, graduating with Honors.

As an actor and comedian in Los Angeles, Jeff has built a resume that illustrates range and versatility. On television, he has been seen on The Mentalist, Scandal, Shameless, Rake, and Stalker, had recurring roles on soaps like The Bold and the Beautiful, General Hospital, and The Young and the Restless, as well as family fare like Nickelodeon’s Just for Kicks. His numerous national and regional commercials include products as varied as Coors Light, Dodge, Coldwell Banker, Disney, and the Apple iPhone.

Jeff also has extensive stage credits, performing seasons with the Texas and Nevada Shakespeare Festivals, The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, and northern California’s Theatreworks, where he won a Dean Goodman Award for the role of Chris in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons. Jeff played the title character in the world premiere comedy, The Psychic, and the rock star Johnny in Dissonance, both at Gary Marshall’s Falcon Theatre. Most recently, Jeff spent three seasons appearing at the beautiful Norris Center theatre, starring in Noises Off, Love, Sex, and the IRS, and The 39 Steps, for which he won the Desert Theatre League award for Best Actor.

Jeff performs live comedy as well, producing and starring in The Returning Champs , an improvisational comedy troupe that has appeared at venues such as Hollywood’s IO West, Santa Monica’s Westside Eclectic, and the LA Comedy Festival. With stand up comedian Christian Spicer, Jeff created Double Jump, the live late night comedy show which has played to sold out audiences at the popular Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater, and was recently turned into a weekly web show for the popular Nerdist YouTube Channel.

As co-creator and host of the wildly successful net talk show, The Totally Rad Show, Jeff became a recognized web personality and an authority on movies, video games, television, and comics for the hundreds of thousands of fans who watched the show. TRS was honored with Webby and Podcast awards, and was called “the best weekly video podcast – period” by Wired Magazine. Jeff was LA correspondent for Reviews on the Run, the G4 network’s daily media review program, for over 300 episodes, and has guest hosted on Daily Tech New Show, This Week in Tech, Techzilla, Breaking it Down with Catherine Reitman, and Attack of the Show, among many others.

Jeff was also co-host of Weekend Confirmed with Garnett Lee for Shacknews.com, a long-running video game talk show widely regarded as one of the industry leaders. Jeff was cohost of two shows on the powerhouse technology network, CNET, Always On with Molly Wood and Tomorrow Daily with Ashley Esqueda. Currently, Jeff can be heard every week on the /Filmcast, a movie review and opinion show recently named one of the “30 Best Podcasts” by Complex.com, as creator and host of DLC, the video game industry talk show on the 5by5 Network listed in Entertainment Weekly’s 20 “Must Listen” podcasts, and three times a week with Anthony Carboni on the comedy podcast, We Have Concerns, named one of iTunes “Best of 2014” and winner of a 2016 Podcast Award for Best Entertainment Podcast.

Jessica Lynn Parsons is an actor from Michigan, where she graduated from the Theatre and Film programs at Western Michigan University. Jessica has performed in diverse theatrical spaces, from intimate small black box theatres, to UCB’s Hollywood stages, to an abandoned Louisiana state prison. You may have seen Jessica as a co-star on CBS’s S.W.A.T., Scorpion or in award-winning LGBTQ+ short film, EVOKE. In the geek universe, you can see Jessica play D&D every week on the livestreaming show “The Dungeon Run.” Jessica co-created and hosted the geeky cooking show, Damsels & Dishes, or you may have seen her on Twitch as a cast member of RPG shows, Anesidora (Maze Arcana) and Shield Maidens, or as a guest on Hyper RPG.