Trial by fire: How first-time showrunner Kat Sandler brought her stage play Yaga to the small screen
As her play Yaga makes the leap to television, Canadian playwright-turned-showrunner Kat Sandler tells DQ about adapting her theatrical fairy-tale mystery, the TV series that inspired the show and why she never wants an audience to stop paying attention. SUBSTACK HEADLINE How Kat Sandler brought her stage play Yaga to television SUBSTACK INTRO Speaking to Kat Sandler about making her first TV series, an adaptation of her own stage play Yaga, the playwright-turned-screenwriter and showrunner admits she’s feeling “on the right side of overwhelmed pretty much all the time.” It’s little wonder. The Canadian supernatural mystery drama enjoyed a world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and ahead of today’s launch she also took the series to New York Comic Con and the Vancouver Horror Show. Described as a reimagination of the myth of Baba Yaga set in a small coastal town, the show follows a private detective searching for the heir to a powerful fishery and the local police detective who reluctantly teams up to help him. Along the way, they discover a charismatic university professor with a taste for younger men and a labyrinth of enigmatic suspects, secret lives and ancient magic. Read on to discover: • The premise of Yaga • The dynamic between lead characters Rapp and Carson • How Kat Sandler’s play Yaga was first developed for television • Why Sandler wanted a female antihero in the mould of Tony Soprano and Dexter Morgan • Which theatrical elements from the play have translated to … Continue reading Trial by fire: How first-time showrunner Kat Sandler brought her stage play Yaga to the small screen
