Darren Criss and Kether Donohue star as Top 40 pop songwriters in the new Quibi musical comedy series Royalties, which dropped its first trailer on Tuesday.
The show is co-written and executive produced by Criss along with long-time collaborators Nick and Matt Lang — the team behind the YouTube series Team Starkid — and directed by Clueless filmmaker Amy Heckerling. The show premieres June 1st.
Royalties follows Sara and Pierce, a scrappy songwriting duo who try to craft a chart-topping single each week. Each episode of the show features a real-life artist or entertainer portraying a fictitious, over-the-top version of themselves, performing an original song written by Criss. (Judging by the trailer, this will include some very flashy, very campy fake music videos as well.)
Some of the stars featured in the show will include Mark Hamill, Jennifer Coolidge, Rufus Wainwright, Julianne Hough, Lil Rel Howery, Bonnie McKee, Chord Overstreet, Kevin McHale, Jordan Fisher, Jackie Tohn, Sabrina Carpenter and more. John Stamos also guest-stars as a dastardly record executive intent on taking the songwriting duo down.
Republic Records will release the soundtrack to the show on June 12th. The album will feature Criss, Wainwright, Hamill, Hough, Fisher and Carpenter and is the first major label release for a Quibi show.
Criss recently starred in Ryan Murphy’s newest limited Netflix series Hollywood, which premiered May 1st on the streaming platform, alongside David Corenswet, Dylan McDermott, Holland Taylor, Patti LuPone and Jim Parsons.
