Jane Levy To Star In ‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist’ NBC Pilot, Richard Shepard To Direct

Former Suburgatory star Jane Levy is set as the lead of NBC’s Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist musical dramedy pilot, from Jake in Progress creator Austin Winsberg, Eric and Kim Tannenbaum, FeigCo, Universal Music Group and Lionsgate TV.

Richard Shepard has come on board to direct the pilot, replacing Paul Feig, who originally intended to direct but won’t be able to due to his busy feature schedule. Feig will continue to serve as an executive producer.

Written by Winsberg, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist is described tonally as What Women Want meets La La Land. It follows a whip-smart but socially awkward girl in her late 20’s, Zoey (Levy)  who is suddenly able to hear the innermost thoughts of people around her as songs and even big musical numbers that they perform just for her. With this new ability at her disposal, she is able to use her “gift” to not only help herself understand people in her life, but also to help others around her.

Levy’s Zoey is a socially awkward, smart, charming, type-A whip-smart coder with a nervous energy and an impressive ability to talk a lot.

Winsberg and Shepard executive produce with FeigCo’s Feig and Jessie Henderson, along with Kim Tannenbaum, Eric Tannenbaum and Jason Wang via The Tannenbaum Company and David Blackman and Daniel Inkeles of UMG’s Polygram Entertainment.

Levy, known for her starring role as Tessa Altman on  ABC’s Suburgatory, will next be seen as a lead opposite Renée Zellweger in What/If, Netflix’s social thriller anthology drama series. She also co-starred on Hulu’s Castle Rock and was most recently seen on the big screen in comedy Office Uprising. She’s repped by Gersh and attorney Robert Offer.

Shepard, who won an Emmy for directing the pilot for Ugly Betty, is repped by UTA, 3 Arts and and Karl Austen.