Starz Picks Up Strip Club Drama ‘P-Valley,’ Opioid Drama ‘Hightown’

Starz has picked up the series P-Valley and Hightown. Created by Katori Hall and based on the play Pussy Valley, P-Valley “takes an unapologetic look at the lives of strip-club dancers working down in the Dirty Delta,” according to Starz. Hightown touches on the opioid epidemic and is set in Cape Cod.

Picked up for development in 2016, P-Valley is executive produced by Chernin Entertainment. It stars Brandee Evans as Mercedes and Nicco Annan as Uncle Clifford. Shannon Thornton and J. Alphonse Nicholson will be series regulars.

Showrunner Hall will executive produce with Chernin Entertainment. Karena Evans will direct the premiere episode.

Said Starz, “This southern-fried, hour-long drama tells the kaleidoscopic story of a little-strip-club-that-could and the big characters who come through its doors—the hopeful, the lost, the broken, the ballers, the beautiful, and the damned. Trap music meets film noir in this lyrical and atmospheric series that dares to ask what happens when small-town folk dream beyond the boundaries of the Piggly Wiggly and the pawnshop.”

Hightown is a crime drama set amid the drug trade on Cape Cod. It starts when a body washes ashore and is discovered by an irreverent National Marine Fisheries Service officer who is determined to solve the murder despite state cops who want her nowhere near the case.

Hightown is written and executive produced by Rebecca Cutter. Gary Lennon will executive produce with Jerry Bruckheimer, Jonathan Littman and KristieAnne Reed from JBTV. Monica Raymund stars.

Production begins in March.

Senior VPs of original programming Marta Fernandez and Susan Lewis are the Starz executives in charge of P-Valley. Senior VPs of original programming Ken Segna and Lewis are the Starz executives overseeing Hightown, along with director of original programming Kathleen Clifford.

Starz is part of Lionsgate. 

Michael Malone

Michael Malone, senior content producer at B+C/Multichannel News, covers network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television. He hosts the podcasts Busted Pilot, about what’s new in television, and Series Business, a chat with the creator of a new program, and writes the column “The Watchman.” He joined B+C in 2005. His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Playboy and New York magazine.