Women Write Now Fellow Wilandrea Blair Set For First-Look Deal With NBCUniversal Television & Streaming

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Women Write Now fellow Wilandrea Blair has been awarded a first-look deal with NBCUniversal Television & Streaming to develop projects for Peacock, which will be produced by LOL Studios.The announcement was made during a Women Write Now Celebration event which took place at NeueHouse Hollywood on Saturday, to honor fellowship recipients including Blair, Danielle Nicolet and Moni Oyedepo, and guest directors including Gabrielle Dennis (A Black Lady Sketch Show), Meagan Good (Harlem) and Bresha Webb (Run the World).Launched in July 2021, Women Write Now is a comedic writing fellowship designed to champion and elevate the next generation of Black women in comedy through mentorship, advocacy, production and exhibition.

The program put on on by Kevin Hart’s comedy brand and multi-platform entertainment company Laugh Out Loud was developed in partnership with the Sundance Institute, and is presented by Chase Sapphire.

Blair, Nicolet and Oyedepo were selected from a pool of more than 670 applicants for the initiative’s first cycle, developing and producing their comedic scripts under the guidance and mentorship of award-winning filmmakers, industry leaders, Laugh Out Loud’s executives and production team, partners from the Sundance Institute and one of the three aforementioned guest directors.The short films that resulted from the program—Buddy and Bernice (written by Blair, and directed by Dennis), Black Karen (written by Nicolet, and directed by Good) and Take the Job (written by Oyedepo, and directed by Webb)—are now streaming exclusively on Peacock.

Following their completion, each fellow had the opportunity to pitch new projects to NBCUniversal and Laugh Out Loud executives for the chance to secure a development