Back in October, we learned that Clea DuVall was adapting Tegan and Sara’s best-selling memoir High School into a television series and we promptly sounded the lesbian alarms. Well! Now we are so excited to give an update — High School: The Series (my name, just to distinguish from the memoir, not theirs. And not to be confused with High School: The Musical — or maybe its High School: The Gay Musical? Tegan and Sara, call me!) will be officially produced as a series for Amazon’s IMDb TV.
The show was announced as a part of Amazon’s first-ever New Fronts presentation on Monday. It will be produced by Amazon Studios and Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment. It will also be executive produced by all three lesbian icons (Duvall, the Quin twins).
High School (the memoir) was released in September 2019, chronicling Tegan and Sara’s coming-of-age as Canadian teenagers and their rise as musicians, alternating their perspectives. Filled to the brim with 90s nostalgia, when the book was first released we promptly declared that it would “heal your teenage heart.”
The series, according to Variety, will pick up on that same sweet, sweet refrain, creating a story “about finding your own identity, a journey that is made more complicated when you have a twin whose own struggle and self-discovery closely mimics your own.” It will be told against “a backdrop of ‘90s grunge and rave culture, [that] weaves between parallel and discordant memories of twin sisters growing up down the hall from one another.”
Ok so now you probably have at least one remaining question… what is IMDb TV? That has an easy answer: It’s Amazon’s free, ad-supported streaming service. And now for the incredibly early planners among you (it’s a gay thing, we understand) — how on earth you get to this streaming service? Great news, I’ve already looked it up! If you have an Amazon Fire Stick, it already comes loaded onto the device. If you have Roku, Apple TV, or just want to use your web browser — you basically just have to download it or sign up. Yes, we are still a while away! But I know you wanted to know!
In their official statement about the news, Tegan and Sara confirmed that they have made some casting suggestions to DuVall and Plan B Entertainment, but mostly they just wanted to “apologize in advance to our mother for forcing her to relive this period of time with us again.”
Then, with the fancy business out of the way, they took to Twitter and added that they were as shocked as anyone that their “degenerate” years were being turned into a television show.
No one is more shocked than us, that after a VERY difficult couple years in high school, doing copious amounts of drugs, skipping school, lying + being all around degenerates that we made it this far in our musical journey. THAT story is headed to @IMDbTV https://t.co/KB2ezcZKUN
— Tegan and Sara (@teganandsara) May 3, 2021
We absolutely cannot wait.
I’m so ecstatic! Looking forward to the soundtrack and score!
Eeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!
I can’t wait! “High School” was a great story to read. I wasn’t a huge fan of their music initially when I was a teen, but as an adult I’ve gone back and gotten into it and their albums are so good :)
It’s also really cool that IMDBtv is a free streaming service! Of course I want queer creators to be supported (and I know T&S will be getting paid for this obvi), but a free service means more people can access the show which is always a good thing. The more people who get to watch good queer-made content, the better!
Agree, I started digging their music as an adult too!
I’m wondering who will play the twins and came across this tweet (also love Clea’s response – and the Tatiana Maslany reference):
https://twitter.com/teganandsara/status/1389636520999456768?s=19
omg Tatiana