Hulu has given a series order to The Act, a character-based seasonal true-crime anthology series from writers Nick Antosca (Channel Zero) and Michelle Dean and Universal Cable Productions, Deadline has learned.

Written by Dean and Antosca, The Act, which has been in development at Hulu since last year, is a seasonal anthology series that tells startling, stranger-than-fiction true crime stories. The first season is based on Dean’s 2016 Buzzfeed article “Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick, Gypsy Wanted Her Mom To Be Murdered.” It follows Gypsy Blanchard, a girl trying to escape the toxic relationship she has with her overprotective mother. Her quest for independence opens a Pandora’s box of secrets, one that ultimately leads to murder.

Hulu

Antosca and Dean will executive produce and serve as co-showrunners. Greg Shephard and Britton Rizzio also executive produce. Universal Cable Productions, where Antosca is under an overall deal, is the studio.

Antosca is the creator, showrunner and executive producer of Syfy’s hit horror anthology series Channel Zero, which premieres its fourth season this fall. He also is co-writing and executive producing the supernatural horror/thriller film Antlers, based on his short story The Quiet Boy, for Fox Searchlight with Scott Cooper directing and Guillermo del Toro and David Goyer producing. Prior to Channel Zero, Antosca was a writer and producer on NBC’s Hannibal and MTV’s Teen Wolf. He has written five books.

Dean is an award winning journalist. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Wired, Harper’s and The Guardian, among other publications. Her first book, Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion, was published last month to critical praise.

The Act bolsters Hulu’s expanding original series slate and like a number of recent projects put in development or ordered to series by Hulu,is based on or adapted from widely-known IP. It joins Little Fires Everywhere, a limited series based on Celeste Ng’s bestselling book, toplined and executive produced by Reese Witherspoon and Scandal star Kerry Washington, which recently received an eight-episode straight-to-series order, and upcoming limited series Looking For Alaska, based on John Green’s best-selling novel, from Paramount Television and Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage’s Fake Empire, along with 9/11 drama The Looming Tower and season 2 of Emmy-winning The Handmaid’s Tale.

Antosca is repped by WME, Writ Large and Ginsburg Daniels. Dean is repped by WME, the David Black Agency, and Ginsburg Daniels.