The Chair Company

The Chair Company is an HBO comedy series created by Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin. Robinson plays William Ronald Trosper, a man set on investigating a broad conspiracy after an embarrassing workplace incident. HBO’s description makes that incident the show’s inciting event, while the title points to the business world surrounding Trosper’s ordeal. The series therefore combines a workplace starting point with the obsessive, escalating inquiry pursued by its central character.

The project reunites Robinson and Kanin, whose prior television collaboration includes Netflix’s sketch comedy series I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson. Robinson was the star and co-creator of that program; Kanin was also a co-creator. Before The Chair Company, the pair created the Comedy Central sitcom Detroiters, which starred Robinson and Sam Richardson. Their HBO series is not an anthology of sketches: it is built around Trosper and a continuing conspiracy plot.

HBO ordered The Chair Company as a series in 2024. The network announced Robinson as its lead and named Kanin as his co-creator. The announced cast also includes Lake Bell, Sophia Lillis, Will Price, Joseph Tudisco, and Lou Diamond Phillips. These performers give the show an ensemble beyond Robinson’s investigator, although HBO’s initial materials centered principally on Trosper’s workplace humiliation and his response to it.

The series arrived as HBO programming rather than as an installment of Robinson’s Netflix work. That distinction matters to its creative history: I Think You Should Leave developed its stories as short, self-contained comic premises, whereas The Chair Company was commissioned as a half-hour comedy series with a sustained narrative. Its premise specifically concerns a man who refuses to let a mortifying professional experience go and begins looking for an explanation larger than the event itself.

Robinson’s career before this show includes performing on Saturday Night Live as a cast member and writing for the program. He also appeared in and co-created Detroiters, while his Netflix sketch series became closely associated with his high-intensity performances and elaborate social discomfort. Kanin’s credits include Detroiters and I Think You Should Leave, both projects he co-created with Robinson. The Chair Company draws those collaborators into a format: an HBO comedy led by Robinson, focused on William Ronald Trosper’s investigation, and supported by Bell, Lillis, Price, Tudisco, and Phillips. Its first-season order was for eight episodes, underscoring HBO’s plan for a serialized comedy rather than a one-off special or limited sketch collection format.