Ari's Diary



Ari's Diary is an upcoming original young-adult mystery fantasy television series, airing on ABC family sometime in Spring 2016. Ten episodes of the television series were booked in May 2015, by Martin Schumacher, who is set to be the showrunner and director. Schumacher has also stated that the writers have enough ides and plotlines set out for at least 3 seasons, with more episodes being set out.

Plot
Based in the fictional town of Merriweather, Michigan, 16 year old Ariella "Ari" Waverly comes across a diary after clearing out her old house. This diary, she discovers, holds secrets of the town of Saltbay, and how it held secrets of an underwater city known as Atlantis. She soon discovers that the diary could be telling the truth, and sets out to find out more about Saltbay.

Production
Ari's Diary was picked up by ABC Family in early 2015, who then hired Martin Schumacher to run the show and create several episodes of it. Schumacker struck a deal with Rhyhorn Studios, a British/American television production company who agreed to help produce the series. This brought several writers, producers, directors and executives into the mix. Filming is set to begin in September 2015 in Los Angeles, California.
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Rhyhorn Studios and ABC Family both collaborated together to hold auditions in June 2015. Beth Bonaparte-Tatum was the first actress to be revealed, and is set to play Marina Waverly, and her counterpart, Marina the Magnificent. Gerald-Lee Daniels and Dina Merrett were both confirmed to join the cast, playing Dean Powell and Olivia Waverly, respectively. Merrett originally auditioned for the role of Marina Waverly, but was asked to read the part of Olivia instead. Declan Kuntz was confirmed to play the part of Greg Waverly, alongside his counterpart, King Triton. Raymond Bennett, Darryl Grimbly and Luisa Winston's characters were not confirmed until last month as Schumacher was unsure if their characters would fit in the pilot and series. All three of them will be playing the roles of Ralph Benji, Alvin Emerald and Susan Waverly.
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The character of Ari Waverly was the very last main character to be confirmed, as ABC Family did not want to give many details on her character. Tiffany Burnett was confirmed to portray her. Nina Fabian was also brought into the mix as Chelsea Talgoy, Ari's old best friend. Supporting characters are still being confirmed, but no actors names have been mentioned yet.