“Slings & Arrows” costar, writer and creator Susan Coyne confirmed to The Chronicle Herald that the prequel of the series in in development, as we reported earlier this year. Coyne confirms they have written 3 scripts and that they are hoping to bring back actors from the original show.

Canadian writer-actress Susan Coyne loves a good behind-the-scenes story.

She’s been a writer on the acclaimed comedy series “Mozart in the Jungle,” which gives a fictional peek behind the curtain of a New York symphony, and she co-created and co-starred in the hit Canadian show “Slings & Arrows,” about the comical backstage life at a Canadian Shakespearean theatre festival.

Coyne says she’s now working on a prequel to “Slings & Arrows,” which ran from 2003 to 2006, along with original co-creators Bob Martin and Mark McKinney. They’ve written three scripts, arced out the whole series and hope to bring back actors from the original show, which featured Paul Gross, Martha Burns and Rachel McAdams.

“The CBC has expressed interest and we’re actually out to a director at the moment,” Toronto-based Coyne said recently by phone.

“It’s very much in the style of ‘Slings and Arrows’ but it takes you back to the origin of the festival itself.”

Given that they are aiming for a prequel, we are not sure there is room to bring Rachel’s character back since she plays an apprentice in the original series but we are hoping there is room for at least a cameo. We will keep you posted on the development of the prequel.

We came across an interesting news tidbit which we overlooked before. It seems a prequel for “Slings & Arrows” is in development. Co-creator Mark McKinney, who currently stars in NBC’s Superstore, and star of the series talked about the possibility of a prequel last year with the AV Club. It appears no reports have been made about the development recently. Judging on twitter reports from before, it seems the creators have been hinting about the prequel since 2014 and most recently talked about it during the creators Shakespeare 400 panel in 2016. No reports have been made on who of the original cast will return and if this would include Rachel. Given that it’s a prequel, we are not sure there is an arc for Rachel’s character Kate but we will keep an eye out for developments on this! The excerpts with McKinney can be found below.

AVC: Is there ever any talk of a Slings And Arrows revival? Is that universe closed at this point?
MM: We’ve been working on it for a couple of years now. We have a prequel locked and loaded that we’re going to set up somewhere. It’s a good one. It’s a true prequel, it goes back several years, almost to the foundation of the New Burbage Festival itself. It’s a great story.

AVC: Do you think it might get picked up?
MM: We were with the CBC in Canada, as we were with the original Slings And Arrows—and the original, they dropped it right before, almost at this exact same point, we were ready to go. And unfortunately, I think the almost the identical thing happened. So now we’re looking around. But it’s a vastly different landscape. We might be looking down here [in the United States], we might be looking up there, I’m not sure.

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