‘Sons of Anarchy’ Alum Katey Sagal Lands New ABC Comedy ‘Nana’

Former Sons of Anarchy star Katey Sagal signed on to star in Nana, a new family sitcom for ABC after the network ordered a pilot Monday.

Nana centers on an overprotective father with two daughters trying to keep his life together after his wife’s death. When her mother, played by Sagal, shows up, she tries to take charge and raise two granddaughters she barely knows.

According to Variety, Sagal will executive produce with writer Lon Zimmet, an Emmy-nominated writer/producer whose credits include Happy Endings, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, The Michael J. Fox Show and Men at Work. Zimmet’s most recent series was Fox’s short-lived LA to Vegas.

Other executive producers include Ted Melfi and Kimberly Quinn of Goldenflight Kosove, Broderick Johnson and Laura Lancaster of Alcon Entertainment. The show is a 20th Century Fox TV and ABC Studios co-production.

Sagal is a veteran of multicam sitcoms, playing Peg Bundy on FOX’s Married With Children. She also starred in 8 Simple Rules, Superior Donuts, Eli Stone, Futurama, Imagine That, Tucker, Mary and Boston Legal. She won a Golden Globe for playing Jax Teller’s mother, Gemma Teller Morrow, on Sons of Anarchy, created by her husband, Kurt Sutter. Segal played the role again in the Mayans M.C. pilot.

Nana was one of two comedy pilots ABC ordered on Monday. The other one is a still-untitled project starring Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton, Murder on the Orient Express) as one-half of a married couple who balance life as the leaders of their church and as parents to four children. The story is inspired by real-life pastors, Touré Roberts & Sarah Jake-Roberts.

Odom’s show was written by Saladin Patterson (The Big Bang Theory, The Last O.G.). Actress Kerry Washington and Pilar Savone are executive producers under Washington’s Simpson Street. Roberts and Jake-Roberts are also involved as executive producers. ABC Studios is producing.

While Nana and Odom’s project are going forward, ABC chose to push back a planned Bewitched reboot written by Black-ish creator Kenya Barris. The project would have featured a black female witch who falls in love with a white mortal man.

ABC is also developing a still-untitled show starring former New Girl actress Hannah Simone and Woman Up, about two thirty-something moms.

“What I’m doing is what I can do now, which is choose pilots from the development that existed,” Karey Burke, the new ABC Entertainment President, told Deadline this week. “And a lot of the pilots that we’ve chosen have been more female- forward than perhaps in the past year or two, that they’re not female-exclusive. They also have a lot of male appeal. But we’re just using a few more that have strong female leads and points of view.”

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