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The Chair: Sandra Oh, Netflix College Comedy Debuts This August

Published Wed, 12 May 2021 17:58:11 -0500

Last updated Thu, 13 May 2021 01:34:18 -0500

Sandra Oh will star in The Chair, a new comedy set on a New England college campus. The Netflix series will be produced by HBO's Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. The six-episode academic satire was created by and will be co-written by Benioff's wife Amanda Peet, who will also serve as showrunner. The series is scheduled to premiere on August 27.

The Chair: Sandra Oh to Star in Netflix College Comedy — Sandra Oh in "The Chair", Netflix

The central character of The Chair, Professor Ji-Yoon Kim, played by Oh, is the first female and woman of colour to be appointed the head of the English Department at the fictional Pembroke University.

Netflix released a cheeky news clipping announcing the appointment of Oh's character, Professor Ji-Yoon Kim. It seems to set the slightly snarky tone of the show: a prestigious college in danger of decline, a bewildered new appointee who finds the job might be more of a nightmare than a dream. The rest of the cast will probably comprise colleagues and students who make her life hell, and her personal life will probably not be a bed of roses either. It's about time we got a new campus comedy. There used to be one every generation.

The series will be Peet's first as a writer and showrunner, but she has written two plays that were produced in New York and Los Angeles. The Commons of Pensacola was staged by the Manhattan Theatre Club in 2013, and Our Very Own Carlin McCullough was produced at Los Angeles' Geffen Playhouse in 2018.

Jay Duplass co-stars in the half-hour series. Peet and Duplass previously worked together on HBO's Togetherness, which ran for two seasons from 2015 to 2016. The cast also includes Holland Taylor, Bob Balaban, Nana Mensah, David Morse, and Everly Carganilla.

Amanda Peet executive produces the six-episode half-hour comedy alongside Sandra Oh, David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Bernie Caulfield, and Daniel Gray Longino. Peet will lead the writer's room that includes Annie Julia Wyman, Richard E. Robbins, Jennifer Kim, and Andrea Troyer. Daniel Gray Longino will be series director. The Chair begins streaming on Netflix on August 27.

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