Hit Instagram Account ‘The Shade Room’ Unveils First Original Series Slate

The Shade Room (TSR), a buzzy Instagram account founded in 2014 to celebrate black culture and furnish entertainment gossip, is getting into the original content business.

The company’s first original shows will roll out later this year — developed by an all-female production team — exclusively on Instagram. The Shade Room, which was founded by 28-year-old entrepreneur Angelica Nwandu, counts 15 million followers and receives 1.5 billion impressions per week.

The slate comprises three unscripted series featuring guest appearances by Ray J and Amber Riley. Petty Court is a court-formatted show hosted by Instagram influencer Landon Romano (pictured above), where guests will be able to air their petty grievances; Struggle Chef is a cooking competition series where fans will face off against the aforementioned celebrity guests; and F-boy Chronicles will provide an investigative look at fair-weather boyfriends.

The shows will be produced by a two-woman team: Emmy-nominated showrunner Tarvenia ‘T’ Jones and up-and-comer Judith Nwandu. TSR founder Angelica Nwandu — who co-wrote a film called Night Comes On that won the NEXT Innovator Award at the Sundance Film Festival last year and was released by Samuel Goldwyn Films last August — will EP all three projects.

“We’re thrilled to announce our first slate of original programming as The Shade Room celebrates its fifth anniversary this year,” Nwandu said in a statement. “The series reinforce our commitment to providing entertainment that caters to black culture and allows us to collaborate even more closely with our Roommates [which is what the company calls its followers], who truly make TSR feel like a family.”