Anya Adams To Direct Pilot Episode About “Queen Of The Negro Leagues” Limited Series
Deadline is reporting that the remarkable story of Effa Manley, the first and to-date only woman to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, is headed to the screen. Anya Adams (Black-ish, GLOW, Ginny & Georgia) is attached to direct the pilot of the limited TV series titled The Eagles of Newark, which is based on baseball historian James Overmyer’s praised non-fiction novel Queen of the Negro Leagues: Effa Manley and the Newark Eagles.
Alcon Television Group, who is producing the series, also picked up the rights to Byron Motley (The Negro Baseball Leagues) and Jeffrey Miiller’s adaption of the material to use both as source material.
The limited series will chronicle the dramatic efforts by tenacious civil rights activist Effa Manley and her husband Abe as they embark upon a risky business venture – starting their own ball club, the Newark Eagles, in the raucous world of the Negro Baseball Leagues. Effa Manley served as the team’s business manager.
“Effa Manley was a trailblazing woman and the passion she brought to everything she became involved in is deeply admirable to us,” said Alcon Television Group Co-Founders and Co-CEOs Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove. “We are thrilled at the opportunity to bring her historic story to life.”
Adams, Motley, Miiller and Josh Green will executive produce The Eagles Of Newark alongside TwentyFive8’s Caleeb Pinkett and Dougie Cash. Ben Roberts of Alcon Television Group secured the rights to the project and will also executive produce alongside Alcon’s Kosove and Johnson. Ben Cook will produce.
Adams won this year’s NAACP Image Award for outstanding director in a comedy series for Black-ish and last year’s award in the category for GLOW. She is set to direct the upcoming Searchlight film Step and recently directed two episodes of Alcon Television Group’s popular series The Expanse.