Showtime Greenlights New Comedy Series SMILF from Frankie Shaw

SHOWTIME has announced the pick-up of the new half-hour comedy series SMILF from Frankie Shaw, based on her Sundance Film Festival Jury Award-winning short film of the same name. The series order will include 10 episodes that will begin airing this fall. Set in Boston, SMILF will take a raw and honest comedic look at a single, 20-something from Southie whose desires for relationships, sex, and a career collide with the realities of young, single motherhood. Shaw will star, write, produce and direct the semi-autobiographical comedy, with Oscar® nominee Michael London (Sideways) and Emmy® nominees Janice Williams (Confirmation), Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky (The Office, Bad Teacher) executive producing. Multiple Emmy winner Rosie O'Donnell will co-star in her first series regular TV role as "Tutu", Bridgette's (Shaw) mother, who is completely oblivious to social convention. The series is produced by ABC Signature Studios as a co-production with SHOWTIME.

"It's thrilling to find an artist with a strong, singular voice that is new to television," said Gary Levine, President of Programming, Showtime Networks Inc. "Frankie literally does it all on SMILF: writer, producer, director and star, and the results are funny, emotional, surprising and unapologetic."

Frankie Shaw is a Boston-born writer, actress, director and producer currently based in Los Angeles. In addition to SMILF, Shaw also wrote and directed the 2016 short Too Legit starring Zoe Kravitz, which premiered at Sundance in 2016. Shaw also recently wrapped a supporting role in the feature film Stronger directed by David Gordon Green and starring Jake Gyllenhaal.

About Showtime Networks Showtime Networks Inc. (SNI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of CBS Corporation, owns and operates the premium television networks SHOWTIME®, THE MOVIE CHANNEL™ and FLIX®, and also offers Showtime ON DEMAND®, THE MOVIE CHANNEL™ ON DEMAND and FLIX ON DEMAND®, and the network's authentication service Showtime ANYTIME®. Showtime Digital Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of SNI, operates the stand-alone streaming service SHOWTIME®. Showtime is currently available to subscribers via cable, DBS and telco providers, and as a stand-alone streaming service through Apple®, Roku®, Amazon, Google and Samsung. Consumers can also subscribe to Showtime via Hulu, Youtube TV, Sling TV, Sony PlayStation® Vue and Amazon Channels. SNI also manages Smithsonian Networks™, a joint venture between SNI and the Smithsonian Institution, which offers Smithsonian Channel™, and offers Smithsonian Earth™ through SN Digital LLC. SNI markets and distributes sports and entertainment events for exhibition to subscribers on a Pay-Per-View basis through Showtime PPV®. For more information, go to www.SHO.com.

About ABC Signature Studios ABC Signature is ABC Studios' boutique division spearheading development and production in premium and basic cable, as well as digital platforms. Signature co-produced with Fifty Fathoms the John Ridley series Guerrilla, for Showtime and Sky Atlantic, starring Freida Pinto, Babou Ceesay and Idris Elba. Marvel Television and ABC Signature Studios are in pre-production on three series including Marvel's Runaways for Hulu, as well as Marvel's Cloak and Dagger and Marvel's New Warriors for Freeform. Signature's credits include Dead of Summer, Blood & Oil, Benched and the Emmy-nominated film Confirmation, starring Kerry Washington and Wendell Pierce.

Image courtesy of Showtime

To post a comment, you must register and login.