ABC Seeding ‘The Growing Season’ Adaptation With Danny Strong & ‘Hung’ Co-Creator Colette Burson

Dominic Patten
·2 min read

EXCLUSIVE: ABC is planting some heartland drama with Empire co-creator Danny Strong and Hung co-creator Colette Burson.

The Disney-owned network has put The Growing Season is development from the duo, I’ve learned.

The show is based on Sara Frey’s recently published The Growing Season: How I Built a New Life–and Saved an American Farm. Hitting shelves back in August, Frey’s memoir detailed the hardscrabble shift the rule breaking author made from rural poverty to creating a widely successfully family business that has now seen her dubbed “America’s Pumpkin Queen.”

The Anonymous Content-repped Burson will showrunner The Growing Season with Strong as a non-writing executive producer. Frey herself will served a co-EP and Danny Strong Productions chief Mandy Safavi will also serve as an EP on the 20th Television production, that comes with a penalty commitment.

In front of the camera himself in Showtime’s Billions and Disney+’s just launched The Right Stuff, Buffy The Vampire Slayer alum Strong also has the Michael Keaton-starring Dopesick on his increasingly full dance card as a producer and writer. Then there is the Cookie Lyon in L.A. Empire spinoff and Ya Bint, which is in development at Freeform. Represented by CAA, Sweeney Entertainment and attorney Alan Wertheimer at Jackoway Austen, Strong re-upped his deal with 20th Century Fox TV last year.

As well as having co-showrun the WGA nominated Hung for HBO for three season, Burson penned and directed the feature Permanent starring Patricia Arquette and Rainn Wilson, back in 2017, and was a consulting producer on the premium cabler’s Los Espookys. Burson is also reped by lawyers at Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman, Inc.

Sarah Frey is repped by CAA.

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