Teen Drama THE RICH KID RULES to Make East Coast Premiere at NYC TV Festival

The Rich Kid Rules, a new coming-of-age crime drama set in the high-pressure world of elite teen professionals, will mark its East Coast premiere at the NY CITY TV Festival on Wednesday, January 21, 2026, at 8:30PM at the Quad Theatre, 34 W. 13th Street, New York, NY 10011. Tickets are available now here.

Executive producer and creator Thomas Willoughby, Director A.L. Pruitt, and Holly Fox, Animal Wrangler, will be in attendance along with lead actors Sienna Novikov, Omar Zhari, and John Henry Richardson for the New York screening and post-screening conversations with festival audiences and industry guests.​​

The NY CITY TV Festival world premiere marks the launchpad for a focused East Coast visibility campaign designed to spark interest from networks, streamers, and showrunners ahead of the NATPE Global TV Marketplace, running February 2–7, 2026. The project has a finished SAG-AFTRA pilot, production-ready locations, and four seasons already mapped.

“The Rich Kid Rules lives in that rare space where emotional, family-driven storytelling collides with real danger and consequence,” said Executive Producer Thomas Willoughby. “Our team have built a grounded, aspirational YA world—with authentic horses, dance, and a first-love story—that buyers can step into right now.”​​

For more than three decades, Willoughby’s own journey, from high-school dropout to a professional navigating high-stakes environments, has informed the show’s core mythology, including 362 “The Rich Kid Rules” that fuel a decade of storylines.

In the pilot, 16-year-old prodigy Sandy (Sienna Novikov) sees her perfect life implode when her mother is jailed and a crime lord orders her Mom’s death; teaming up with stable kid Frankie (Omar Zhari), she must outthink the criminal world that raised her to save the person she loves most.​