Showtime is making moves to beef its half-hour comedy slate back up.
Variety reports that the cabler has ordered a pilot from writer/director/producer/actress Frankie Shaw based on her Sundance Jury Award-winning short film SMILF. The announcement was made by Showtime President and CEO David Nevins at the TCAs.
Showtime originally bought the project for development last year and are pulling the trigger now that a handful of its signature comedies (Nurse Jackie, Californication, House of Lies and Episodes) have recently come to an end. Shaw is joined as an executive producer on SMILF by Lee Eisenberg, Gene Stupitsky, and Michael London. The pilot is a co-production between Showtime and ABC Signature.
The semi-autobiographical SMILF follows twentysomething single mother Bridgette Bird as she struggles to navigate relationships, work and sex all while taking care of her child. Shaw wrote, directed and starred with Thomas Middleditch in the original nine minute short. Though Shaw is set to star in the Showtime pilot, there is no word if Thomas Middleditch will appear on the show in some capacity.
Along with SMILF, Shaw is also known for writing/producing/directing/starring in her 2016 Sundance Jury Prize-nominated short Too Legit, which also stars Zoe Kravitz, Teresa Palmer, Nate Corddry and Clark Gregg. Though Shaw is a terrifically talented writer/director she is probably most well known as Elliot Alderson’s drug dealer/pseudo-girlfriend Shayla in season one of Mr. Robot.
SMILF joins Showtime’s lineup of upcoming comedy projects which includes the picked-up-to-series comedy I’m Dying Up There, and in-development pilots Mating (starring Taran Killam) and White Famous (starring Jay Pharoah).