Chelsea Lately writer-comedian Fortune Feimster is shifting her focus to acting.
The Roundtable regular has exited her regular writing role with Chelsea Handler's E! shows and boarded Fox's Tina Fey-Matt Hubbard comedy Cabot College (working title) as a series regular, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Feimster will continue to remain a roundtable regular on Lately.
The multicamera comedy takes place at a women's college that has just opened its doors to men for the first time. Third Watch alum Bonnie Dennison stars as Thena, a pretty but uptight sophomore and hard-core feminist who is the leader of the sizable population of Cabot College that doesn't want men on campus. Broadway actor Jack Cutmore-Scott co-stars as Charlie Deckard, a wealthy Kennedy-esque guy who enrolls in the college, much to Thena's chagrin.
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Feimster will portray Becca, a student who is a popular sophomore and openly gay, who is not tortured by her sexual orientation in the least. The character is a three-sport varsity athlete who is an outgoing, extremely loud and raucous partier.
Production on the comedy -- which has a series commitment -- begins in March, as Fox is poised to shift to year-round programming and out of the traditional pilot season. 30 Rock's Hubbard penned the script for the Universal Television vehicle and exec produces alongside Fey, Robert Carlock and David Miner. Pam Fryman (How I Met Your Mother) directs.
For Feimster, an openly gay comedian, the role closely resembles her own background -- she graduated from the women's college Peace College in North Carolina; she also plays softball, soccer and tennis.
Feimster's casting comes a year after she had Discounted -- a comedy she wrote, exec produced and was poised to star in -- set up at ABC with Handler attached. She's repped by Gersh, Truhett Garcia Management and Lev Ginsburg.
E-mail: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
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