Ashley Zukerman Tapped For ‘Manhattan’; Whitmer Thomas Boards ‘Crazy House’

Ashley Zukerman has been cast as one of the leads in WGN America’s 13-episode scripted series Manhattan. The show, from writer Sam Shaw and director Thomas Schlamme, Skydance TV, Tribune Studios and Lionsgate TV, is set during the clandestine mission to build the world’s first atomic bomb in Los Alamos, NM, and follows the brilliant but flawed scientists and their families. Zukerman will play Charlie Abrams, a super-bright, self-described “numbers guy” with an IQ of 180 and a good sense of humor. Zukerman next will be seen in the six-part Australian thriller The Code for ABC1. Other TV credits include a recurring on Fox’s Terra Nova. He also guested in a multi-episode arc on HBO’s The Pacific and starred in Australian drama series Rush. Zukerman is repped in the U.S. by APA and Cohn/Torgan Management and in Australia by Lisa Mann Management.

Whitmer Thomas has been signed as co-lead opposite Nick Turner in Comedy Central‘s single-camera comedy pilot Crazy House. Written and co-executive produced by Turner and Lee Rubenstein, the project revolves around two friends who, after accidentally sending their boss into a coma via an office prank, successfully plead insanity and are sentenced to an asylum. Thomas just wrapped the lead role in the Andrew O’Connor-directed indie May The Best Man Win. A stand-up comic, Thomas is with the alternative comedy collective Power Violence and also produces a weekly show in Hollywood by the same name. Thomas is repped by Gersh, 3 Arts, and Ginsburg/Daniels.

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