‘PEN15′ Co-Creator & Star Anna Konkle Reacts To Series’ Gotham Award

Hulu’s coming-of-age comedy PEN15 won its first major award tonight, but the creators/stars/executive producers were not on hand to receive it.

“Gotham Awards, thank you!,” co-creator, star and exec producer Anna Konkle wrote on Twitter Monday night after PEN15 was named winner for Breakthrough Series – Short Form. “Wish we could be in NYC with you celebrating. Instead, over here on S2 set with our tits strapped down, shooting exteriors till midnight..”

The comedy series, which films in Los Angeles, is currently shooting its second season. Production is going full-steam following some logistical challenges early on, which prevented the producing team from flying to New York for the Gotham Awards.

PEN15, which Konkle and Maya Erskine co-created with Sam Zvibleman, is set in middle school, with Konkle and Erskine playing versions of themselves as 13-year-old outcasts in the year 2000. (For authenticity, the thirtysomething actresses tape down their chests on the show, which Konkle was referring to in her tweet.)

The off-beat comedy got its first major awards recognition in July when it landed a Writing for a Comedy Series Emmy nomination, which Erskine and Konkle shared with Stacy Osei-Kuffour.

At the Gotham Awards, PEN15 won against fellow streaming comedy newcomers, Hulu’s Ramy, Netflix’s Russian Doll and Tuca & Bertie and Amazon’s Undone.  

PEN15 is executive produced by Erskine, Konkle, Zvibleman, Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, Becky Sloviter, Marc Provissiero, Brooke Pobjoy, Debbie Liebling, and Gabe Liedman.