HBO Max, the upcoming WarnerMedia streaming platform, has put in development Drama Queen, a half-hour dramedy based on TVLine co-founder Michael Ausiello’s childhood. The project hails from J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot and Warner Bros. Television.

Ausiello is writing the pilot script and will serve as an executive producer alongside Bad Robot’s J.J. Abrams and Ben Stephenson should the project move forward. Rachel Rusch Rich will serve as co-executive producer.

The single-camera Drama Queen is set in the 1980s and centers on a closeted, TV-obsessed teenager who copes with the harsh realities — and relative mundaneness — of life in small-town New Jersey by escaping to an alternate soap opera universe of his own creation.

Bad Robot

Drama Queen’s development will not interfere with Ausiello’s job as President and Editorial Director of TVLine. He originally teamed with Bad Robot for the project last summer.

Ausiello is also developing a feature adaptation of his acclaimed, best-selling memoir, Spoiler: Alert: The Hero Dies, at Focus Features. Jim Parsons’ It’s Wonderful Productions is attached to produce and Parsons to star. Michael Showalter is attached to direct.

Ausiello’s Drama Queen‘ deal was brokered by Anonymous Content and Mckuin Frankel Whitehead.