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YouTube has given a pilot order to It’s a Man’s World (working title), a provocative half-hour comedy taking on gender inequality in the gaming industry. It is written by Smash creator Theresa Rebeck and produced by Christina Wayne’s Assembly Entertainment in association with ITV Studios America.
It’s a Man’s World, written by Rebeck, centers on Emma, a successful video game design executive and the sole breadwinner for her family who is used to dodging the land mines that come with being a woman in a male-dominated field.
When she gets fired without explanation and finds that she’s being blacklisted by everyone in her industry, Emma decides to dress as a man to get a new job and to continue supporting her family. As strange and politically incorrect as Emma’s new life may be, she begins to enjoy the newfound ease of access and power that comes with being a man.
The pilot will be executive produced by Assembly Entertainment CEO Wayne (I’m Dying Up Here) and Rebeck. Jill Greenberg is the co-executive producer. Production is set to begin this fall.
People pretending to be someone else in order to get a job has been popular TV comedy series fodder. The premise was employed successfully in Darren Star’s TV Land hit Younger, about a fortysomething divorced woman who passes herself off as a 26-year-old to break into the publishing world; and not so successfully in the short-lived ABC sitcom Work It, about two out-of-work men dressing up as women to land jobs as pharmaceutical salespersons.
It’s a Man’s World falls under Assembly’s overall deal with ITV Studios America. Prior to starting Assembly, Wayne was the president of Cineflix Studios from its inception, where she executive produced Copper for BBC America. She previously ran scripted programming at AMC
Rebeck is a TV writer and a prolific and widely produced playwright. In addition to creating NBC’s Smash, Rebeck’s has written for Canterbury’s Law, LA Law, NYPD Blue, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Dream On and Brooklyn Bridge. Her fourth Broadway play, Bernhardt/Hamlet, will premiere as part of the Roundabout Theater Company’s 2018-2019 season, making Rebeck the most Broadway-produced female playwright of our time.
She also wrote and directed the indie film Trouble, starring Anjelica Huston and Bill Pullman, which will be released this fall. Rebeck is repped by ICM Partners and Dan Halsted at Manage-ment.
