Tanya Saracho Developing Drama Series About Mexican Americans in Love in London
It’s been two years since beloved series Vida was cancelled and creator Tanya Saracho is back now with a new series on Starz revolving around complicated relationships
Photo: Instagram/@tanyasaracho
It’s been two years since beloved series Vida was cancelled and creator Tanya Saracho is back now with a new series on Starz revolving around complicated relationships. Lovesong follows two Mexican American childhood friends living in London as they become entangled in a torturous love triangle with the same captivating singer-songwriter — a love story born out of betrayal and paid for with the cost of friendship. The series embarks on a cinematic contemplation of love, sex, identity, purpose, and the price of happiness. It’s rooted in the music scene in East London and it’s born out of Saracho’s real-life experience visiting London.
“This story is very much a child of the pandemic, born from those times when we were yearning for love stories to soothe the soul and light the way through the dark times,” Saracho said in a statement. “This is also when the light of Johnny Flynn’s music found me and lit the way into the story. While I spent five months in London, Johnny was generous enough to lead me through his lived experience of the East London music scene, which now comprises the world of Lovesong. It’s wonderful to be coming home to Starz to conceive of my new story of love, a place that truly nurtured and supported me while I crafted the love story of the two Hernandez sisters in ‘Vida,’ and I couldn’t be happier to return to bring this new narrative to life.”
British actor, musician, and singer-songwriter Johnny Flynn, 39, will serve as composer and executive producer along with Saracho and co-executive producer Christine Dávila under Ojalá Productions. Saracho was praised for assembling an all-Latinx writers’ room who were mostly women and half identified as queer. She’s continued to amplify Latinx stories through the development of the Ojalá Ignition Lab in the summer of 2021 providing access to industry professional and workshops to allow Latine writers to work on a television pilot script from start to finish.
The announcement came ahead of Starz’ inaugural #TakeTheLead summit that happened May 19 where she participated in the “Power of Allyship” panel about the importance of representation. “There is a danger to not seeing yourself represented … it can amount to erasure,” she said during the summit. “We are almost 19 percent of this country yet we are less than three percent of the narratives on TV. We take up not a lot of space in the media… it affects perception, it affects legislation.”
The half-hour drama is currently in development and will air on STARZ.
