Chicago native and comedian Brittani Nichols is a writer on ABC’s “Abbott Elementary.” Quinta Brunson, the show’s creator and star, spent time in Chicago earlier in her career taking classes at Second City, but ironically, that Chicago connection is not how they met.
Nichols wound up meeting Brunson when they both worked on a BuzzFeed web series called “You Do You.” They would again work together on HBO’s “A Black Lady Sketch Show.” How did that lead to the ABC sitcom?
Around the time “Abbott Elementary” was first coming together, Nichols had sold a show to the streaming platform Quibi, which later went out of business. As Nichols looked around for her next project, Brunson mentioned: “I have this pilot at ABC and if it goes, just keep it in mind as you make decisions.”
