People in New Jersey: HBO Casts Silverman, Grace and LuPone

Sarah Silverman, Topher Grace and Patti LuPone have been cast to star in HBO’s new Lorne Michaels comedy pilot People in New Jersey.

Quite the cast, huh?

People in New Jersey focuses on an adult brother and sister living in the Garden State who consider life’s many questions as they struggle through the day.  The show is described as a hilarious and poignant look at today’s world as seen through the duo’s eyes.

Grace will star as Carl Levin, an affable locksmith with a definite idea of how things and people should be, who resists mightily when things don’t go his way.  He is single, dating constantly, and thinks of others, however despises change.  This is Grace’s return to series telvision since That ’70s Show.

Silverman is set to play his sister, Melanie Levin, a former management consultant now working part-time at a department store – a temporary job that doesn’t feel that way.  Melanie is involved with a man in what her mother calls a “half-relationship,” and is starting to wonder if she deserves something better.  She can be described as driven, and a closet optimist.

LuPone will be portraying Rachel Levin, mother of Carl and Melanie, who has been somewhat lost since the death of her husband.  Her energy is focused on her children, and is all opinions.

Girls writer/EP Bruce Eric Kaplan will pen the script and executive produce alongside Michaels and Andrew Singer.