Writer and director Allison Anders is setting her next project in her hometown of Ashland, and it has been picked up by AMC, home of Mad Men and The Walking Dead.
Ashland native Allison Anders at work on her 1996 feature, “Grace of My Heart.” Her new series, “Ashland,” has been picked up by AMC. © Photo by Claudette Barius.
Ashland is a period drama set during the Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s. The story reportedly will center on Del, a woman who has to move home to a small Kentucky town with her three children after her screenwriter husband is blacklisted.
The series was written by Anders and Terry Graham, and Anders will reportedly co-executive produce the series with Shana Eddy-Grouf and direct the pilot. Anders’ writing and directing credits include the independent classic Border Radio (1987), Gas, Food, Lodging (1992) and Sugar Town (1999) — note the music thread running through her work — and she has directed episodes of Sex in the City, Southland and The Mentalist.
The project is currently in development, and there is no word on casting or shooting locations. FX’s Justified is set in Kentucky but has never filmed here, much to the chagrin of local fans, producers say because of financial constraints. There are numerous “reality” shows that have filmed in Kentucky, including Animal Planet’s Call of the Wildman and the new Guntucky on CMT.
In several media accounts, Ashland has been mentioned as a possible successor on AMC’s schedule to Mad Men, the advertising-agency based period drama that is starting to wind down.
