Michaela Conlin and Nancy Lenehan have joined the cast of ABC’s upcoming comedy pilot Drop-Off, according to Deadline.
L-R: Michaela Conlin, Nancy Lenehan
What’s Happening:
- The tentatively titled Drop-Off is based on the British series Motherland, which is set in a middle-class suburb of London.
- Drop-Off centers on Julia (Ellie Kemper), a working mom for whom nothing is working so she goes looking for her village. With the help of new friends Calvin (Karan Soni) and Liz (Conlin), Julia discovers she just might succeed at balancing work and parenting from time to time. This is a comedy for anybody who’s dropped their kids at school, breathed a sigh of relief … then realized it’s Sunday.
- Conlin’s Liz is another single mom at Julia’s kids’ school. She’s cool, doesn’t care (but she loves her kids, 7-year-old Danny and the baby). Unlike Calvin and Julia, Liz doesn’t like the inner circle of moms at their kids’ school and doesn’t want to be part of them. Liz lives a bit of an alternative lifestyle — there’s pretty much nothing in her apartment except a giant mattress on the floor — and her breezy disregard for the status quo is comforting to both Calvin and Julia.
- Lenehan will play Marianne. Warm, loving, responsible, the kind of person who has rocks in her garden with platitudes chiseled on them, Marianne is Julia’s mother, who’s been taking care of her kids since the oldest was a baby — and that’s six years now. Having been a working single mom herself, Marianne is not without compassion for Julia’s situation and she loves her grandchildren, but she’s done. Marianne has decided to live her own life from now on, and that includes having an affair with a guy named Rene and firmly taking some time for herself.
- They join the cast alongside the previously announced Ellie Kemper, who plays the lead role of Julia, as well as Karan Soni and Judy Greer.
- Conlin will next be seen opposite Simu Liu in One True Loves, while Lenehan has appeared in shows such as A League Of Their Own and Veep.
- The new series is written by Julieanne Smolinski and the pilot will be directed by Michael Showalter
- The series also comes from Sharon Horgan and Clelia Mountford’s Merman Television, Paul Feig’s Feigco Entertainment, Lionsgate and ABC Signature.
- Showalter and Smolinski also executive produce alongside Horgan, Mountford, Stacy Greenberg and Kira Carstensen for Merman Television, Paul Feig and Dan Magnante for Feigco Entertainment as well as Holly Walsh and Helen Serafinowicz.