Lena Waithe has yet another project in development. The prolific multi-hyphenate just received a pilot order from Showtime for “How To Make Love To A Black Woman (Who May Be Working Through Some Sh*t),” an anthology she’ll exec produce. Deadline confirmed the news.
Created and written by Cathy Kisakye, the half-hour comedy is described as a “collection of multi-part episodes which will include new characters in an authentic world, telling stories about connection and rejection that explore our most harrowing – and harrowingly comic – sexual secrets.”
Kisakye worked in the writers’ room for Seasons 1 and 2 of “The Chi,” Waithe’s award-winning Showtime coming-of-age drama. Season 2 is of the Chicago-set series premieres April 7.
Waithe signed a first-look deal with Showtime last summer.
“Working with Lena is the gift that keeps on giving,” said Gary Levine, President of Entertainment, Showtime Networks. “We signed our first-look deal with her so that she could bring authentic and talented new voices to Showtime. Cathy’s comedy is raw, relevant, surprising, sexy, and fun, and we are very excited about making it.”
Waithe added, “Cathy’s script is haunting, funny, and extremely vulnerable – it’s the kind of script that doesn’t come around very often. I’m honored that Cathy trusts me with such a special project. I can’t wait for the world to see it.”
Kisakye emphasized that “How To Make Love” will offer her the opportunity to tell “stories about the women I know, who are complicated, passionate, resilient, and relatable.”
Waithe won an Emmy for co-writing the “Thanksgiving” episode of Netflix’s “Master of None,” an exploration of her character Denise’s coming out journey. Besides “The Chi,” her current and upcoming projects include Halle Berry-exec produced BET series Boomerang,” “Twenties,” a comedy pilot in development at TBS, and “Them,” a horror anthology that’s received a two-season order from Amazon.
“In [the entertainment industry], there is still a stigma that goes along with being a woman, particularly a woman of color, where people already want to label you difficult or not easy to work with,” Waithe has said. “It’s happened to me. So we ultimately have to navigate this industry in a different way. We have to sometimes be kind to people who aren’t kind to us, we sometimes have to be polite, even when we’re not in the mood, we have to handle dealing with executives in a different way because otherwise we run the risk of being put in industry jail,” she emphasized, “People can say what they want about a person, but if you’re successful and you make them money, then people don’t care. The truth is, I’m always working to get to that place so I don’t have to make myself quieter or make other people feel comfortable in certain instances.”
