By Actress Natalie Morales is set to star in Abby’s, a new comedy pilot produced by Parks and Recreation co-creator Mike Schur.
Morales will play the titular character Abby, a no-nonsense ex-Army staff sergeant with two tours in Afghanistan under her belt, who finds her calling in providing an open-air backyard bar that acts as a haven for locals seeking solidarity. The show will focus on Abby’s, an unlicensed bar in San Diego, where patrons happily adhere to unconventional bar rules that make the place a preferred establishment to frequent. Abby, inviting but not overtly sentimental, is forced to defend her livelihood when a new landlord appears with queries over the legality of the whole venture.
It’s a reunion of sorts as Morales had a reoccurring role on Parks and Recreation as Lucy, love interest and future wife to Aziz Ansari’s Tom Haverford. With Josh Malmuth of NBC’s Superstore and Fox’s New Girl writing and executive producing, alongside Schur and his Universal Television-based Fremulon banner, and 3 Arts’ David Miner also executive producing, Abby’s is sure to fall somewhere within that Parks and Rec and Brooklyn Nine-Nine variety of comedy. With Pam Fryman of How I Met Your Mother directing and executive producing the pilot, the multi-cam sitcom is sure to benefit from a mishmash of multi-cam and single-cam comedic beats on offer from the contemporary creatives behind them.
A fan of Parks and Rec, Superstore, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine myself, I have good faith in this project and the hijinks and hilarity that’s sure to ensue. I’d be surprised out of my mind if anyone could make a more memorable female character than the civil-service-crazed, breakfast-obsessed, Joe Biden-exalting character that is Leslie Knope.
With Morales front and center, who’s shown a range of acting chops from credits including USA Network’s White Collar, Fox’s The Grinder, and ABC’s Trophy Wife, and Schur and Co. behind the scenes, I’m sure audiences are in for something uniquely charming and an overall good time.