“House of Cards” Veteran Wants To Make a Reality TV Show Starring Capitol Hill Staffers


Oh, boy.

On Thursday, the Washington Examiner‘s Betsy Woodruff reported that a veteran of the Netflix political drama House of Cards is working to produce a reality TV show based in Washington, DC. The show would star local “up-and-comers,” including Capitol Hill staffers (“the best and brightest on the hill”) between the ages of 19 and 29.

A casting session is set to be held on April 26. One source told the Examiner that the first round of casting has already occurred. (It’s unclear how many Hill staffers would actually be up for this, since most Senate and House offices probably wouldn’t allow employees to take part in a potentially revealing reality series.)

Mother Jones obtained the casting call, which is dated April 14. Check it out:

House of Cards reality tv show casting call

Sharon “Rocky” Roggio, who’s apparently behind the project, was the assistant property master on this year’s season of House of Cards and worked on A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas and the Red Dawn remake. Jena Serbu served as a production designer on Amish Mafia and Breaking Amish: LA.

Other attempts at reality TV in Washington include MTV’s The Real World: D.C. and Bravo’s The Real Housewives of DC. In 2011, Doron Ofir Casting (the company behind such reality-TV hits as Jersey Shore) put out a casting call for “young hot politicos who care about America [and] follow the heated debates, rallies, protests and scandals!” Last month, the Washington Post reported that Leftfield Pictures, the Manhattan production company behind Bravo’s hit show, Blood, Sweat and Heels, is considering launching a DC version of the series. TV dramas and comedies set in Washington, DC, include Scandal, Veep, The Americans, and the attempted sitcom H Street.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate