House of Cards is reaching within its ranks to find successors to creator Beau Willimon, who recently exited as showrunner after four seasons.

Senior House of Cards writers Melissa James Gibson and Frank Pugliese, who have been on the Netflix series since 2014, have been promoted to showrunners.

“I welcome Frank and Melissa in their new roles on House of Cards and look forward to collaborating with them and our creative team on Season Five,“ said star and executive producer Kevin Spacey.

House of Cards, produced by MRC, was recently renewed for a fifth season ahead of the March 4 debut of Season 4. The Washington D.C. politics drama, starring Spacey and Robin Wright, has been a game changer for Netflix, putting the streaming service on the map as an original scripted series player and establishing it as an instant awards contender.

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“We and the rest of the House of Cards writers look forward to the next chapter of the reign of Underwood,” said Gibson and Pugliese.

Like Willimon, Gibson and Pugliese come from a playwriting background. Gibson’s plays include Placebo, What Rhymes with America, This, [sic], Suitcase or, Those that Resemble Flies from a Distance and Brooklyn Bridge. She has received an OBIE Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Steinberg Playwright Award, the Kesselring Prize and the Whiting Writers Award. She has taught playwriting at Princeton University. Pugliese’s screenwriting credits include the feature All Is Bright and FX drama The Americans.

Pugliese’s work in theater includes Aven’U Boys, The King of Connecticut, The Talk, The Alarm, The Democracy Project, and The Summer Winds. His TV credits include Homicide, Law and Order, The Borgias, and Copper. Film credits include Shot in the Heart, Undefeated, and the upcoming Border Crossing. Pugliese is associate professor of television writing at the Columbia University Graduate Film Department; and is the co-director of the television writing program at La Femis in Paris. He has taught screenwriting and television writing for playwrights at the Yale School of Drama, and the New School.

House of Cards also stars Michael Kelly, Mahershala Ali, Jayne Atkinson, Neve Campbell, Derek Cecil, Nathan Darrow, Kim Dickens, Elizabeth Marvel, Dominique McElligott, Molly Parker, Paul Sparks, with Ellen Burstyn, Cicely Tyson and Joel Kinnaman.

Based on the BBC miniseries of the same name, the fourth season of House of Cards is executive produced by Gibson, Pugliese, David Fincher, Kevin Spacey, Eric Roth, Beau Willimon, Joshua Donen, Dana Brunetti, Andrew Davies, Michael Dobbs and Robin Wright. The one-hour drama is produced by Donen/Fincher/Roth and Trigger Street Productions, Inc. in association with Media Rights Capital for Netflix.

Gibson is repped by Manage-ment and CAA. Pugliese is with Manage-ment and WME.