Famed New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast is taking her sardonic wit to a television screen near you. Her best-selling graphic memoir “Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?” is being adapted into a half-hour television series by Shivani Rawat’s ShivHans Pictures and Ken Kwapis’ In Cahoots, Variety has learned.
Emmy-winning writer Sheila R. Lawrence (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Ugly Betty”) will serve as the showrunner. The pilot, which Lawrence wrote, will be directed by the veteran director Kwapis (whose credits include “Malcolm in the Middle,” “The Office,” and “The Bernie Mac Show”).
Kwapis will executive produce with Alexandra Beattie, his partner at the shingle In Cahoots; Rawat; and Monica Levinson.
Chast’s critically acclaimed memoir — a finalist for the National Book Award for non-fiction — traces her experiences caring for her parents in their final years.
“Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?” is the first TV series for ShivHans Pictures, which has backed such acclaimed recent films as “Trumbo,” “Captain Fantastic,” “The Polka King,” and “Beirut.” And the New York-based company founded by producer and financier Rawat will be expanding into distribution with two of its upcoming projects: “Hotel Mumbai,” starring Dev Patel, set for a March 2019 release with Bleecker Street; and “Brian Banks,” about a celebrated college football player falsely accused of rape, which will hit theaters in August 2019.
Attorney Dan Stutz of Stutz Law Corp. negotiated the deal.