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.
