In Netflix series Tiny Pretty Things, murder, mystery and ballet at an elite Chicago dance school
- The Netflix series is set at the elite Archer School of Ballet in Chicago, and starts with a student’s murder
- Lead actress Lauren Holly talks about playing Madame Monique Dubois who runs the school, and trying to move like a dancer
Chicago can’t have nice things – even on the small screen. The new Netflix series Tiny Pretty Things begins with a person wearing a hoodie pushing ballerina Cassie Shore off a building at the city’s only elite dance school. The whodunit unravels over 10 hour-long episodes that follow Cassie’s classmates as they point fingers, fight, kiss, break up, make up, kiss, break the law, kiss, and, oh yeah, dance.
Much of the drama centres around rising star Bette (played by Casimere Jollette), who stops at nothing to snag the lead role in productions; newcomer Neveah (Kylie Jefferson), who refuses to abide by the rules; and Madame Monique Dubois (Lauren Holly), who sacrifices love, joy and family to run the Archer School of Ballet.
“Madame Monique is complicated, to say the least. She was a prima ballerina in a different era and needs to find a way to stay relevant and to keep some power and find her way in this new world, especially doing a job that until that point was done by a man,” Holly says.
The 57-year-old actress – known for her roles in Dumb and Dumber, NCIS and Picket Fences – laughs when asked about her own dance background.
“When I was four or five, I danced to Here Comes the Sun in a gymnasium, does that count? But no, I did not have dance experience, and it was very hilarious because when they were all in training, before we started filming, I wanted to go to their classes as sort of a bonding thing.
“I also felt that it was really important that I carry myself as a dancer, walk like a dancer and all that. I wanted to get the posture correct and whatnot, and I quickly became the comic relief in the class because I couldn’t even hold my arm correctly. They all look so beautiful and graceful in the mirror, and I look like I had branches coming out of my body,” she says.
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Holly may not have the moves, but she knows her way around Chicago. She lived in Lake County, Illinois, for a few years in the 2000s because of her then-husband’s job. Now based in Toronto, she said she was “really bummed” not to make the 2019 trip to Chicago to film.
Much of Tiny Pretty Things was shot in Toronto, though some cast members filmed scenes in Chicago on Wabash Avenue, along the lakefront, by the Riverwalk, at the Art Institute before doors opened to the public, and other spots.
“I told them if we go back, I want to go to Chicago because they all had such a great time. They got to film in such iconic locations,” Holly says.
Netflix has not announced a second season of the series, which is based on the 2015 book Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton. The book is set in New York, but the series’ showrunner, executive producer and writer Michael MacLennan cited his “huge love of Chicago” as a factor for bringing the drama to the Midwestern city.
“When it came to deciding where to set ‘TPT,’ I didn’t want our fictional Archer School of Ballet to be among seven or so professional-level ballet academies as it would be in New York, where it can feel like half the city is out there toting a dance bag and rocking the performing arts,” MacLennan says.
“Relocating the show to Chicago means our students have to engage more in worlds outside dance – to live as part of a larger and more diverse fabric. I took inspiration, of course, from Chicago’s amazing Joffrey Ballet, and its feeder academy.”
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Chicago’s robust dance community may be why many dance-related TV and film projects are set in the city – the 2004 Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez film Shall We Dance?; the 2003 Neve Campbell film The Company; and the 2001 Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas film Save the Last Dance, to name just three.
There’s a new Fox pilot filming in Chicago, too, called The Big Leap, which is said to follow a group of underdogs competing to be part of a ballet-themed reality-TV competition.
No word if that project also begins with yellow police tape.
