BBC America pacts with Elisabeth Moss for drama

US cable channel BBC America is working with Handmaid’s Tale star Elisabeth Moss on a period drama based on a Mary Beth Keane novel.

American prodco Annapurna Television is also attached to Fever, which will star Moss (pictured in Handmaid’s Tale), who also featured in BBC drama Top of the Lake.

Moss holds the novel rights to Keane’s book, and will be an executive producer on the TV show.

Fever “tells the story of the first known carrier of typhoid fever” (Moss), and how she spreads the disease around early 20^th century New York.

Phil Morrison (Enlightened) is signed on as director and executive producer, with Robin Veith (The Expanse) writing and executive producing. Annapurna’s Sue Naegle and Megan Ellison are also executive producers.

“I look forward to telling this story about one of the most infamous women in America, ‘Typhoid Mary,’ a woman whose true tale has never been told,” said Moss. “She was an immigrant in turn of the century New York, a time of huge change and progress in America.

“She was incredibly unique, stubborn, ambitious and in fierce denial of any wrongdoing until her death where she lived out her days imprisoned on an island just off the Bronx in NY.”