Tony-nominated playwright Bess Wohl is at work adapting Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour as a limited TV series. The play follows two schoolmarms who are accused of a lesbian relationship by students, upending their professional and personal lives.
Deadline reports the limited series will use the real-life legal case that inspired Hellman’s work and expand upon the world of the school and the psyche of the accuser.
“Lillian Hellman has long been an inspiration, so it’s especially thrilling to be trusted to adapt her brilliant play,” Wohl (Grand Horizons) said. “I’m looking forward to building on her work and the true story that inspired it, and to sharing this complex and moving story with today’s audiences.”
The Children's Hour originally premiered on Broadway in 1934 and was revived in 1952. A film, starring Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn, hit screens in 1961. Kiera Knightley and Elisabeth Moss starred in a 2011 London staging.
Serving as executive producers will be two-time Pulitzer finalist Jon Robin Baitz and John Goldwyn with AC Studios producing alongside David Levine and Whitney Dibo of Anonymous Content.
