Former How I Met Your Mother star Josh Radnor is set as the lead of NBC’s drama pilot Drama High, from Friday Night Lights executive producer/showrunner Jason Katims and Jeffrey Seller, producer of the smash Broadway hit Hamilton. Also cast as a regular in the project is Damon Gillespie (Aladdin).
Written by Katims, Drama High was inspired by the story of groundbreaking high school drama teacher Lou Volpe (Radnor) as chronicled in the book Drama High, written by one of Volpe’s students, Michael Sokolove. The hourlong project revolves around an extraordinary working-class high school drama department and the incredible students who come alive under a passionate teacher and family man whose dedication to the program galvanizes the entire town.
Radnor’s Lou is a left of center leading man who has to discover his own passion, drive and charisma, Lou is a father of three, a husband and an English teacher at a school in a rust belt town in Pennsylvania. Lou decides to take a leap on taking over the drama department and it ignites an excitement in him which surprises him.
Gillespie plays Robbie, the town’s star football player, who balances his life on the football field and caring for his sick mother at the Nursing Care facility. Every day he is told what he must do, never breaking away until he surprisingly finds his true talent on the stage. They join previously cast Shannon Purser, Rosie Perez, Moana star Auli’i Cravalho and Rarmian Newton.
Radnor starred as Ted Mosby on CBS’ long-running hit sitcom How I Met Your Mother, and most recently played Dr. Jedediah Foster on PBS’ Mercy Street.
Gillespie is repped by Gray Talent Group.
