Since The L Word was such a big hit for Showtime, it shouldn’t be any surprise that the cable network has been looking for something to take its place once the series ended; and now it looks like it may have found it.

The network has just made a deal for a project with Lee Daniels and screenwriter W. Merritt Johnson that will center on the disenfranchised multicultural transgender youth of the Ball subculture in New York City.

Previously chronicled in Jennie Livington’s 1990 doc Paris Is Burning the “underground ball house society consists of New York City’s disadvantaged black, Latino, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transexual communities who come together to compete for trophies and prizes. They all belong to different fraternity-like “houses,” or “drag families,” that serve as surrogate families for their members banded together under one leader”.

Both Johnson and Daniels will be the executive producers on the show, with Johnson writing and Daniels directing (though most likely not all of the episodes) for the series which doesn’t yet have a title, start or broadcast date announced.

And all this is on top of Daniels’ other projects, such as his currently in post-production new feature film The Paper Boy, and the recently announced new TV version of The Valley of the Dolls for Fox and NBC, which Daniels will write and direct.