All five episodes of the Yellowstone-influenced series will premiere Monday on Amazon Freevee.
Call it Upstairs, Downstairs meets Yellowstone, and you won’t be far off the mark.
All five episodes of Casa Grande, an absorbing limited-run series about the intertwining lives of various families in the farmlands of Northern California, will be available for binging Monday, May 1, on Amazon Freevee.
Described as a 21st-century American take on the early 20th-century class contrasts and conflicts that defined the popular 1971-75 British-produced serial Upstairs, Downstairs, Casa Grande is a bilingual character-driven drama set in and around the fictional Clarkman Farm, which employs, houses and feeds much of the Mendocino County’s undocumented immigrants. As characters on either side of the socioeconomic divide interact, friendships are formed, loyalties are tested, love affairs blossom, and betrayals are revealed.
Created by Lauren Swickard (A California Christmas) and Ali Afshar, the drama was directed by award-winning filmmaker Gabriela Tagliavini (Despite Everything) and written by Alex Ranarivelo, Michael Cruz, and Lauren Swickard, who also serves as the series showrunner. The ensemble cast Afshar (He’s Just Not That Into You), the drama John Pyper-Ferguson (The 100, Suits), Christina Moore (That ‘70s Show, 90210), Madison Lawlor (Juniper), Karen Bethzabe (Babylon), Javier Bolaños (All American), Raquel Dominguez (Chicago Med), James Marsters (Buffy The Vampire Slayer), Emmy-winner Kate Mansi (Days of Our Lives), Christian James (All American), Daniel Edward Mora (Coco), and Loren Escandon (The Baxters).
“We molded Casa Grande as a Hispanic-influenced Yellowstone,” says Ali Afshar, “and feel the story will resonate powerfully with audiences appreciating elevated Western themes and cultures presented through a different prism. Amazon Freevee is the perfect service for audiences to discover and binge the world of Casa Grande, where the intensity never lets up and the traditional good vs. evil trope becomes skewed and more challenging to accept.”
Ava Rettke, vice-president of development for ESX Entertainment, adds: “Our ensemble cast of Casa Grande is made of rich and in-depth characters from both Latin and American families as they toil with the pressures of old tradition versus the promises of the new. We hope this will resonate as much with our audiences as it has with the filmmakers and real-life farmers and landowners with whom we worked closely to make this series.”
We had the opportunity to talk with creative talents on both sides of the camera for Casa Grande during a recent virtual junket.