Prentice Penny, Martyna Majok to Develop Majok’s Play ‘Queens’ as HBO Series

By Joe Otterson

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Prentice Penny and Martyna Majok are teaming up to develop a drama series based on Majok’s play “Queens” at HBO.

“Queens” examines the lives of two generations of immigrant women that collide in a basement apartment in Queens, as the choices they’ve made about their security, dignity, and desires come back to confront them.

Majok will adapt the play for the screen and serve as executive producer, with Penny executive producing under his A Penny For Your Thoughts Entertainment banner. Alex Soler of Penny for Your Thoughts will serve as co-executive producer. Soler is said to have been instrumental in bringing Penny and Majok together for this project.

Penny is currently under an overall deal at HBO, where he serves as the showrunner and executive producer on the critically-acclaimed comedy series “Insecure.” The show was recently renewed for a fifth season . His other TV credits include “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “The Hustle,” “Scrubs,” and “Happy Endings.” On the feature side, Penny recently made his feature directorial debut with the Netflix original “Uncorked,” which he also wrote and produced.

He is repped by Hansen Jacobson.

Majok is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, known for her works “Sanctuary City,” “Queens,” “Cost of Living,” and “Ironbound.” Her plays have won numerous other awards beyond the Pulitzer, while she was also the 2015-2016 Playwright of New York Fellow and a 2018-2019 Hodder Fellow at Princeton.

She is repped by CAA, Kaplan/Perrone, and Morris Yorn.

Other recent development announcements for HBO include “Hellraiser,” which is based on the film franchise of the same name.  Variety exclusively reported that “Insecure’s” Issa Rae is teaming with Dwayne Johnson to develop a series about backyard wrestling for the premium cabler.