David Heyman’s Heyday Television Adapting Greg Howard’s ‘Middle School’s A Drag, You Better Werk!’ For TV

Peter White
·2 min read

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EXCLUSIVE: Once Upon A Time…in Hollywood and Marriage Story producer David Heyman’s Heyday Television is adapting Greg Howard’s book Middle School’s A Drag, You Better Werk! for television.

Deadline understands that Heyday Television, which produces series including BBC One thriller The Capture, is working with its joint venture partner NBCUniversal International Studios on the project.

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The book, which was published by Penguin Random House earlier this month, focuses on an enterprising boy who starts his own junior talent agency and signs a 13 year-old aspiring drag queen as his first client.

Twelve-year-old Mikey Pruit, president, founder, and CEO of Anything, Inc, has always been an entrepreneur at heart. Inspired by his grandfather Pap Pruitt, who successfully ran all sorts of businesses from a car wash to a roadside peanut stand, Mikey is still looking for his million-dollar idea. Unfortunately, most of his ideas so far have failed. A baby tornado ran off with his general store, and the kids in his neighborhood never did come back for their second croquet lesson. But Mikey is determined to keep at it.

It isn’t until kid drag queen Coco Caliente, Mistress of Madness and Mayhem, aka eighth grader Julian Vasquez, walks into his office, which is his family’s storage/laundry room, looking for an agent that Mikey thinks he’s finally found his million-dollar idea, and the Anything Talent and Pizzazz Agency is born. Soon, Mikey has a whole roster of kid clients looking to hit it big or at least win the middle school talent show’s hundred-dollar prize. As newly out Mikey prepares Julian for the gig of a lifetime, he realizes there’s no rulebook for being gay – and if Julian can be openly gay at school, maybe Mikey can, too, and tell his crush, dreamy Colton Sanford, how he feels.

Howard previously wrote The Whispers, which is currently under option by Call Me By Your Name producer Peter Spears.

Howard is represented by UTA and Brianne Johnson at Writers House. Heyday Television is represented by UTA.

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