There’s something rotten going on at Alfred Pierce Prep School.
Pierce is the New England setting for a new five-episode original series on CPTV, “The Cobblestone Corridor,” which premieres Sunday, Oct. 16.
The show is set at the upscale school, where two student journalists investigate mysterious activities. All of the interiors were filmed at Ethel Walker School in Simsbury. Exteriors were filmed at UConn School of Law in Hartford.
The show is an unusual addition to the CPTV lineup. CPTV is not usually associated with original scripted shows, but rather with children’s shows during the day and news, documentaries, UConn games and imported BBC programs in the evening.
Dean Orton, chief operating officer of CPTV/WNPR, said the national PBS in January debuted its first original drama series in more than a decade. That show, “Mercy Street,” had a six-episode first season and has been greenlighted for a second season.
Orton said CPTV has high hopes that “Cobblestone” will appeal to what has traditionally been an underserved audience on public television — viewers in the teens-to-30s demographic. In addition to being set among teenagers, the show is executive-produced by 20-somethings Erik Bloomquist of Newington, who created the show, Bloomquist’s brother Carson and Danielle Bonanno of Ellington.
Orton added, however, that he hopes the mystery theme of “Cobblestone” also will appeal to CPTV’s traditional audience, who love the mystery “Sherlock.” “Our audiences are letting us know that they want more of these scripted stories from us, especially on Sundays,” Orton said. “That our station is producing its own is pretty [unusual].”
Erik Bloomquist, a Trinity College graduate, plays the male lead in the show, and Bonanno the female lead. The cast also includes Hartford Stage veterans Bill Raymond (perennial Ebenezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol”) and Michael Bakkensen (“Ether Dome”).
“The Cobblestone Corridor” is an offshoot of a short film of the same name that Bloomquist made. Bloomquist said he was inspired to create the story by the 19th-century architecture at Trinity.
“Architecture like that I think has something of the aesthetic of a film noir detective story,” he said. He called his show “a classic film noir cityscape reinvented in a prep-school setting. It’s an elaborate labyrinth into the seedy underbelly.” He also called the show an homage to “the lasting impact of print journalism.”
Bloomquist and Bonanno met each other, and met Bakkensen, while performing in “Ether Dome” in 2014.
Bloomquist described his character Allan Archer: “He’s passionate about good, solid investigative reporting and critical thinking and rational analysis, not to dumb things down to the lowest common denominator. He can be grating.”
Bonanno describes hers, Claire Robinson: “She and Allan have the same goals. They both want the paper to succeed, but they go about it in different ways. She’s very opinionated, strong-willed and stubborn. There’s a level of being correct to both of us.”
Orton said CPTV is reaching out to the national PBS and public stations in other states to gauge interest in picking up “Cobblestone” for viewing outside Connecticut. “We’ve gotten very favorable interest and feedback,” he said. He added, however, that CPTV won’t know for several months if “Cobblestone” will be picked up for a second season.
“Cobblestone” episodes will be available online for CPTV members only, in its new “Passport” system.
In addition to promoting “Cobblestone,” the Bloomquist brothers are working on a feature film, “Founder’s Day,” which Bloomquist described as a “horror thriller murder mystery set in a small town.” It will be made by the Bloomquist brothers’ production company, Mainframe Pictures, which also produced “Ghost Tour,” a short filmed in Hartford’s Mark Twain House and released last year.
THE COBBLESTONE CORRIDOR will premiere Sunday, Oct. 16, at 7:30 p.m. on CPTV. The premiere episode will repeat at 7 p.m. the following week, followed by the next episode at 7:30 p.m. That broadcast pattern will repeat throughout the five-episode first season. facebook.com/TheCobblestoneCorridor. To join the CPTV Passport program, go to cptv.org and click on the “donate” tab.
