14 May 2002

Bram and Alice," the television pilot that stars Roger Bart, Katie Finneran and Alfred Molina, has been picked up for CBS-TV's fall schedule.

Bram and Alice," the television pilot that stars Roger Bart, Katie Finneran and Alfred Molina, has been picked up for CBS-TV's fall schedule.

Created by Christopher Lloyd and Joe Keenan ("Frasier"), Variety previously billed the untitled show as a "father-daughter" comedy in which Finneran plays a woman named Katie "who dabbles in various careers and ends up giving advice" to a character played by actress Traylor Howard ("Two Guys and a Girl").

Roger Bart, who is currently starring as Carmen Ghia in the Tony-winning Mel Brooks musical The Producers, won his Tony Award for his portrayal of Snoopy in the revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. He also appeared on Broadway in Triumph of Love and The Who's Tommy and Off-Broadway in Fully Committed and Up Against It. Katie Finneran recently received a Tony nomination for her role as the dizzy, contact-lens losing Brooke Ashton in the current Broadway revival of Noises Off. Her other theatrical credits feature roles in Cabaret, The Iceman Cometh, Neil Simon's Proposals, The Heiress, In the Summer House, My Favorite Year, Two Shakespearean Actors and On Borrowed Time. Alfred Molina was nominated for a Tony for his work in the three-person play Art and starred in the TV series "Ladies Man." On the London stage Molina was seen in Serious Money, Speed-the Plow and Night of the Iguana.

Variety also reports that the Nathan Lane pilot, "Life of the Party," written by Jeffrey Richman, may run as a mid-season replacement. Lane, a two-time Tony winner for his work in A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum and The Producers, recently left his lead role in the latter show.

—By Andrew Gans and Kenneth Jones