Lauren Ambrose, Michael Emerson, Marcia Gay Harden, Miriam Shor, Jean Smart, et al. to Star in New Pilots

Tony Award winner Marcia Gay Harden, along with theater veterans Lauren Ambrose, Angela Bassett, Michael Emerson, Pedro Pascal, Sarah Paulson, Aidan Quinn, Miriam Shor, Jean Smart, and Tracie Thoms have all been signed to upcoming pilots, according to recent published reports.

Harden, who won the Tony Award for her work in God of Carnage, will have a supporting role as an overbearing mother in ABC’s new comedy, Smothered.

Ambrose, who has appeared on Broadway in such shows as Exit the King, will star in FOX’s Weekends at Bellevue. Based on Dr. Julie Holland’s memoir of the same name, and will focus on a psychiatrist (Ambrose) in charge of the weekend shift of Bellevue Hospital psychiatric unit. As previously announced, Janet McTeer will also appear in the show.

Bassett, seen in the original Broadway production of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and the Public Theater production of Macbeth, will star in ABC’s drama pilot, Identity. The show centers on a Special Agent (Bassett) in charge of the FBI’s new Identity Crimes Unit, who is determined to make a go of this division, using sophisticated technology combined with old fashioned investigative methods.

Emerson, best known for his Emmy-Award winning work on Lost, will star as a reclusive billionaire alongside Jim Caviezel and Taraji P. Henson in CBS’ crime drama Person of Interest.

Paulson, seen on Broadway last spring in Collected Stories, is set to star in an as-yet-untitled NBC workplace comedy about a relationship-challenged woman who finds herself guiding people through unexpected career transitions and downsizings.

Quinn, whose stage credits include A Streetcar Named Desire, will appear alongside Mario Bello in NBC’s remake of the BBC detective drama Prime Suspect. He will play squad commander Kenny Rowe.

Shor, whose stage credits include Hair and Hedwig and the Angry Inch, will appear in the ABC dramedy Good Christian Bitches.

Smart, seen on Broadway in The Women and Piaf, will star in an untitled pilot for NBC, which centers on a young doctor (to be played by Andrew J. West) who joins his parents’ medical practice. Smart is set to play the young man’s mother.

Thoms, seen on Broadway in Rent and Drowning Crow, will join NBC’s Wonder Woman pilot, playing Etta, the cheerful personal assistant to Diana Themyscira/Wonder Woman (to be played by Adrianne Palicki). Meanwhile, Pascal, whose stage credits include Some Men and Hamlet, will also appear in the series as Ed Indelicato, a policeman who befriends Wonder Woman.