Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: Nickelodeon has picked up live-action music comedy pilot How To Rock Braces and Glasses to series with a 20-episode order. The show starring 14-year-old singer/actress/dancer Cymphonique Miller will be titled How To Rock. It features original music and centers on a teen girl (Cymphonique) who becomes the lead singer of a pop/hip hop band. Cymphonique’s casting in the project stems from a substantial talent development deal Nickelodeon signed with the teen in December 2009. Based on Alloy Entertainment’s book How to Rock Braces and Glasses, the series is slated to begin production this summer in Los Angeles for a 2012 premiere. “Cymphonique is an extraordinarily talented 14-year-old who has already established herself as an actress, singer and dancer, while remaining an honor student, and  How To Rock is the perfect showcase for her comedic and musical skills,” said Marjorie Cohn, Nickelodeon’s President, Development and Original Programming. Cymphonique’s father, hip-hop entrepreneur Percy Miller, aka Master P, is expected to be involved in the music for How To Rock, which joins Nickelodeon’s growing stable of music-themed shows that includes recent entries Victorious and Big Time Rush. On How To Rock, after a fall from grace from the perfect and popular group at high school, Kacey Simon (Cymphonique) forges unlikely friendships with the members of the band Gravity featuring Stevie (Lulu Antariksa), Zander (Max Schneider) and Nelson (Noah Crawford). As lead singer, Kacey helps Gravity’s musical success while igniting a musical rivalry with The Perfs featuring her former best friends and fellow performers, Molly (Samantha Boscarino) and Grace (Halston Sage). Comedy veteran Jim O’Doherty (Grounded for Life) wrote the pilot script for How To Rock based on Alloy’s book and a book proposal authored by Meg Haston. Another broadcast comedy veteran, David M. Israel (Grounded for Life), will helm the series as executive producer and a contributing writer. Alloy’s Leslie Morgenstein and Gina Girolamo will also executive produce. The pilot was directed by Beth McCarthy-Miller, who is going 3-for-3 this pilot season. On the broadcast side, she directed the ABC comedy pilots Man Up! and Work It, both of which were picked up to series. This marks the fourth new series order for Alloy in the past few months, following the pickups for Nine Lives and The Lying Game at ABC Family and The Secret Circle at the CW. How to Rock is Alloy’s seventh on-air series overall and the first half-hour comedy. Cymphonique, repped by Buchwald/Fortitude, follows in the footsteps of her brother, actor-rapper Romeo. Romeo, then billed as Lil’ Romeo, was 9 when his father brought him to Nickelodeon, where the youngster headlined his own series for four seasons. Cymphonique, who has performed with Romeo, JoJo, Wonder Girls, Raven-Symone and Ashley Tisdale, voices a character on Disney Channel’s Phineas & Ferb and has guest starred on the Nickelodeon series’ Big Time Rush, True Jackson VP, The Troop and

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TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.