WeForShe has unveiled its annual slate of “industry-vetted, quality-female driven” TV scripts. The 2020 WriteHer List has been announced via a press release, and this year’s 20 selectees include “scintillating soaps, satirical sit-coms, poppy procedurals, daring dramedies, and nearly everything in between!”
Industry professionals nominated a record-breaking number of scripts for the 2020 list. Among those selected is Iram Parveen Bilal’s “Detained,” an hourlong drama about two families, one Pakistani and one Mexican, who have loved ones being held illegally in ICE detention centers. “Immaculate,” Colleen Scriven’s dark comedy about a teen who fakes an immaculate conception to raise money for an abortion, and “The Education of Ebony Stone,” Crystal Garland’s portrait of a black single mother involved in an underground radical network, also made the cut.
The WriteHerList spotlights talented women writers and their stories in the hopes of raising the number of women working in television. Citing the latest “Boxed In” report from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, WeForShe reminds us that women represented just 25 percent of TV creators in the 2018-2019 season, a five-year high.
“We can do better. We have to do better,” the advocacy group stresses. “We know that shows with at least one woman creator, employed substantially greater percentages of women in other key behind-the-scenes roles and featured more female characters in major and speaking roles than programs with exclusively male creators,” it explained in the press release. “In short, when you have more women creating shows, you have more women working on shows across the board, and delivering more authentic stories about women.”
Check out the 2020 WriteHerList, as well as its runners-up, below, courtesy of WeForShe. Head over to the org’s website for more information.
2020 WriteHer List
BIG LAW
By Eva Ordaz
An upstairs/downstairs procedural soap about Angelica, a Latina lawyer from the wrong side of the Los Angeles River who defied all odds to get where she is today – that is she is about to start her dream job in a BigLaw law firm and finally reap the rewards of years of planning, sacrifice and hard work.
Contact: Vern Co, The Gersh Agency
Genre: Hour
BLISS
By Andrea Janakas
Alternating between the before and after of a school shooting, BLISS confronts the painful truths of a small Texas town when the news cameras are gone but the echoes of gunshots linger. It’s not a story about gun reform or politics, it’s a story about a mother’s love and letting go. Adapted from the novel “Oliver Loving” by Stefan Merrill Block.
Contact: Jennifer Good, Paradigm and Manager, Seth Nagal
Genre: Hour
* SET UP WITH PARTICIPANT MEDIA
CHOSEN
By Erin Fischer
When a seemingly average woman discovers she has magical powers and could have lived out her childhood as a chosen hero, she must face the responsibility of defeating evil, as a cynical adult.
Contact: Molly Hurwitz, Zero Gravity Management
Genre: Half Hour
COMA GIRL
By Liz Vassey
A dark comedy centering on Marigold Kemp, the black sheep of a “perfect” Southern family, who ends up in a coma after a mysterious car accident with a famous NFL player and is instantly catapulted to ridiculous levels of fame as #COMAGIRL. The crash investigation shines a spotlight on the entire Kemp family and, unaware that Marigold can hear everything, secrets spill as they get real with each other for the first time ever. Ultimately, this is a show about the irony of a family “getting woke” by one of them being deeply asleep.
Contact: Andy Cohen, Grade A Entertainment
Genre: Hour
* CBS STUDIOS ATTACHED
COMPLEXED
By Crystal Jenkins
After years of burying her feelings, April, a successful celebrity stylist, is finally ready to go to therapy and unpack the many relationship aversions she developed thanks to her absent, unreliable father. But, when her father resurfaces, fresh out of rehab, April must decide where to draw the line.
Contact: Tracey Murray, Industry Entertainment
Genre: Half Hour
COTTONWOOD
By Sarah Sellman
Based on true events, Cottonwood chronicles the lives of several diverse teenagers coming of age in rural 1960’s Colorado as they unravel the secrets behind an unexpected violence: a series of gruesome and unexplained livestock mutilations.
Contact: David Baggelaar, Good Fear
Genre: Hour
DETAINED
By Iram Parveen Bilal
Detained is a thriller drama series about ICE (immigration) detentions and the ensuing connection that builds between two families, a Pakistani and a Mexican family, resisting and fighting for justice as their family members are suddenly and illegally detained.
Contact: Brendan Bragg, Haven Entertainment
Genre: Hour
HAVEN HALL
By Brandi Sperry
Returning to boarding school following a tragedy the previous term, a grieving teenage girl navigates a rift with her best friends as she forms a new and unsettling relationship with a former student — one who died there fifty years earlier, in an unsolved murder.
Contact: brandi.sperry@gmail.com
Genre: Hour
HOMECOMING
By Rae Binstock
A successful New York doctor returns to her rural roots after the death of her estranged mother, only to discover her mother’s role in a new underground railroad for undocumented immigrants.
Contact: Zac Simmons & Allison Schwartz, Paradigm
Genre: Hour
IMMACULATE
By Colleen Scriven
A dark comedy about a teenager in Oklahoma who fakes an immaculate conception to crowdfund her abortion.
Contact: Greg Walter, 3 Arts Entertainment
Genre: Half Hour
JACKSONVILLAIN
By Hennah Sekandary
Michelle Reeves, a mitigation specialist with a flawless record for helping spare the lives of death row inmates, returns to her hometown of Jacksonville, Florida to uncover the truth about a former classmate who’s been accused of murdering her own child. As pressure mounts and a media frenzy unfolds, these two women confront a shared history that compromises Michelle’s role and could have devastating costs to the case.
Contact: Jairo Alvarado, Circle of Confusion
Genre: Hour
LE ROACH
By Kristen Zublin
Corey, Ria and Sara are best friends. Nothing could possibly come between them. That is until one of them starts dating a literal cockroach.
Contact: kzublin@gmail.com
Genre: Half Hour
PLAYING DEAD
By Sarah Beckett
A survivor of a violent crime-turned-vigilante killer finds solace playing bodies on crime TV shows.
Contact: Chris Coggins, Heroes and Villains Entertainment
Genre: Hour
SCARLET
By Julia Keimach
As WWII draws to a close and soldiers return home to a sleepy Louisiana town, a young woman finds she can no longer control her hidden supernatural abilities. As she struggles to keep them concealed from her paranoid neighbors, she’ll discover that her powers may not be her most dangerous secret…
Contact: jrkeimach@gmail.com
Genre: Hour
SPACE TRASH
By Ashly Burch
After mistakenly kidnapping a galactic senator, Hess Tallisen, a fame-crazed bounty hunter, is sent to the clink for 7 years. Upon her release, Hess discovers that she’s been completely forgotten, and to add insult to injury, she’s forced into a job as a space trash lady. Hess is hellbent on regaining her former glory, but to do it, she’ll have to team up with an annoying, aspergers-y inventor named Penny, and there’s an 80% chance they might kill each other before they even get to their first bounty.
Contact: Jennie Frisbie, Authentic Talent & Literary
Genre: Half Hour
* ROCKET JUMP IS ATTACHED TO PRODUCE
SPINSTERS!
By Gillian Muller
With as many regrets as they have accomplishments, four best friends wonder how they got to their 40s so fast; single and fine with that, Melanie, Bea, Maria, and Kameel have all reached the stage of their life when things should start to be easier. They’re wrong.
Contact: Sohrab Merchant, The Characters Talent Agency
Genre: Half Hour
THE EDUCATION OF EBONY STONE
By Crystal Garland
A Black single mother, desperate for cash, is recruited to aid an underground radical network in 1980s South Carolina.
Contact: crystalwrites83@gmail.com
Genre: Hour
THE HOLLOWS
By Wei Ling Chang
After losing her house and going bankrupt, Joy, an ex-beauty queen and single mother of three, sets her eyes on a local beauty contest that promises a large sum of prize money — money she plans to use to open up a pageant school. When she discovers that they’ve been cheated out of their winnings, she must do everything in her power to reverse their fortune and keep her family from becoming homeless.
Contact: Milorad Dragicevic, UTA and Josh McGuire, Underground
Genre: Hour
THE TITS
By Ashley Burleson
THE TITS is a 1/2 hour comedy from the POV of the person who loves someone with cancer, not the person with cancer. While cancer is a driving force within the story, TITS is essentially a love story between two grown ass sisters, Audrey and Julia, who can’t seem to get their shit together, dealing with their family who are all in the middle of their own mini-crisis and somehow finding a way to survive… each other.
Contact: Courtney Conwell, Writ Large
Genre: Half Hour
* PRODUCER ATTACHED
WELCOME TO SHAKTI
By Puja Mohindra
Shakti wants a family, but she has no partner and hardly any eggs.
In spite of her pending spinsterhood, she pursues traditional values in nontraditional ways, discovering she can build a chosen family before a biological one; give birth to her dance dreams before an actual child; and become a Single Mom by Choice before becoming a wife. All her dreams are possible, just not in the order her traditional Indian family expects, much to their disapproval and confusion!
Contact: Peter Principato & Brooke Shoemaker, Artists First
Genre: Hour
Ones to Watch
Although there was not room for them in the 20 for 2020, the following unique voices and stories are presented for additional consideration.
MARIA HIGGENBOTHAM IS A FREAKIN’ PSYCHIC
By Hannah Murphy
When psychic-fraud Maria Higginbotham suddenly gets the powers she’s been faking for years, it seems like a pretty rad set-up…until she finds out she’s also doomed to an eternity of misery. Now with the help of her best friend, a seasoned TV Psychic, and a ghost, Maria will learn how to become a better person by helping the spirits and people that cross her path.
Contact:murphyh4@gmail.com
Genre: Half Hour
MILLENNIAL P.I.
By Anna Rubley & Shana Montanez
Based on a true story, Millennial PI follows the lonely, racy experiences of a lesbian Latina Private Investigator, Stephanie Martinez. Watch as Stephanie navigates the craziness of her career, that “single life,” and her families f***ed up past, all told through her social media accounts… she’s a Millennial after all. #LivinHerBestLife(ish)
Contact: anna.rubley@gmail.com and ShanaMariMontanez@gmail.com
Genre: Half Hour
INVISIBLE LILY
By Christina Quintana
Invisible Lily explores a dystopian future in the wake of an American food shortage and subsequent ban on third children. This one-hour drama follows the Forstalls who find themselves caught up in a fight with the government to save their family.
Contact: Manal Hammad, Verve and Steven Selikoff, The Shuman Company
Genre: Hour
TWO MOMS AND A DAD
By Tess Gattuso
A progressive college professor living with her wellness coach wife and adolescent son takes in her loud-mouthed, self-made father after he’s charged with tax evasion. As he rebuilds his life while she’s still finding her own way, the two battle and bond over ambition, strong personal beliefs, and raising a family in the modern world.
Contact: Audrey Knox, Cartel Entertainment
Genre: Multi-cam Half Hour
THE PRICE OF GOLD
By Rebecca Rosenberg
Olympic ice dancing champions Claire Winter and Ryan King retire from skating and are forced to confront what their lives look like without the pursuit of gold medals to drive them forward. As they search for meaning in training the next generation of skaters, Claire and Ryan find themselves asking if winning was worth the price.
Contact: beckysarawrites@gmail.com
Genre: Hour
