Marsha Stephanie Blake Joins ABC’s Kay Oyegun Drama Pilot

EXCLUSIVE: Marsha Stephanie Blake (When They See Us) is set to star in ABC’s Kay Oyegun drama pilot about a group of therapists in Philadelphia.

The untitled hourlong project comes from 20th Television and is written and exec produced by This Is Us writer-producer Oyegun, who has worked on the hit NBC drama since 2016 and has directed episodes including “Birth Mother” and “One Giant Leap.”

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The drama revolves around five therapists in Philadelphia who find unique ways to solve problems in their patients’ lives while grappling with their own. Ellen Roman (Blake), the owner of the practice and a brilliant therapist, has her life shockingly turned upside down when she begins working with a sociopathic patient who may hold the key to the disappearance of her sister five years earlier.

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Blake’s Ellen is smart, beautiful, a natural leader, instantly perceptive, capable of great empathy, fantastic dry sense of whip-smart humor; a deep well of contradictions stemming from a complicated childhood. She is the founder and main therapist of the “Mindful Insight Therapy Group;” she has both the command and vulnerability to make her the sort of therapist who gives everything she has to her patients. But that devotion, while a strength, is also her biggest weakness.

Blake received both Emmy and Critics Choice award nominations for her role as Linda McCray in Ava Duvernay’s critically acclaimed Netflix miniseries When They See Us. She can currently be seen in The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray limited series for Apple TV+, starring opposite Sam Jackson. She recently completed shooting the lead in the Independent film Brother opposite Aaron Pierre for BRON Studios. She also was recently seen in the Amazon feature I’m Your Woman for director Julia Hart. She’s repped by Anonymous Content and Goodman, Genow and Schenkman.

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