Emily Meade & Mae Whitman To Lead Comedy Pilot ‘Whisper Sisters’

EXCLUSIVE: Emily Meade (The Deuce, The Leftovers) and Mae Whitman (Good Girls, Parenthood) will co-lead Whisper Sisters, a single-camera half-hour comedy pilot from Corey Roederer that takes aim at the male-dominated world of Kentucky bourbon and moonshine.

The pilot begins production in Louisville, Kentucky, this summer.

Whisper Sisters pays homage to the real women who helped build Kentucky’s bootlegging legacy during Prohibition but were written out of its history, the so-called “Whisper Sisters.” Set in and around the heart of bourbon country, the series mines explosive comedy from ideological collision and dysfunctional family loyalty.

Whitman will play Alexis Whisper, a Brooklyn-based coastal elite who fled her Kentucky roots and never looked back.

Meade plays her estranged sister, Erin Whisper, a hard-partying, fiercely independent single mother who never left. Reunited at their father’s funeral, the two opposites are forced to work together to keep the family’s illegal moonshine business — and their unsuspecting loved ones — alive.

Rounding out the ensemble are Britne Oldford (Umbrella Academy) as Kayla, Alexis’s restaurateur spouse; Emma Duchesneau (A Woman’s Work) as Reagan, Erin’s preternaturally shrewd 17-year-old daughter; Sharon Murray as Memaw, the cantankerous matriarch keeper of the family’s moonshine recipe; and Henry Thomas (E.T)) as Keith, a dirty Bullitt County Sheriff with a hand in everything shady that moves through town.

The pilot is written and created by Corey Roederer and directed by Ryan Cunningham (Lone Wolves, Broad City). Casting is by Mary Clay Boland (The Sopranos, As the World Turns), who also produces alongside Brian Loschiavo (Bluebird, Clean Hands), whose company, Riverside Entertainment, is producing the pilot.

“This story started in my own backyard,” said Roederer, a Louisville native. “Growing up in Kentucky, you learn early that bourbon is a religion and that the women who built it never got their names on the bottle. Getting to bring Alexis and Erin to life with actors like Mae and Emily is a dream. And shooting it back home in Louisville brings the whole thing full circle.”

Added Cunningham, “What drew me in is that this is a show about reclamation — women taking back an industry, a legacy, and a family. It’s loud and filthy, with a body count’s worth of bad decisions, but underneath all of it is a real story about two sisters finding their way back to each other.”

The pilot is being independently financed, with the producers planning to use the finished episode to set the project up for series later this year.

Meade is represented by Gersh and Authentic. Whitman is represented by Gersh and Untitled. Oldford is represented by Gersh. Duchesneau is represented by McCray Agency and Asteria Artists. Murray is represented by Heyman Talent and SquarePeg Group Inc., and Thomas is represented by Paradigm and Inphenate. Roederer and Cunningham are represented by Art/Work Entertainment. Loschiavo is represented by Art/Work and UTA.