Deadline reports that Showtime is developing a project with Precious director Lee Daniels and writer W. Merritt Johnson focused on NYC House Ball culture:

The contemporary drama, which Johnson is writing and Daniels is attached to direct, is set in New York City and centers on the disenfranchised multicultural transgender youth of the Ball subculture, previously portrayed in Jennie Livingston’s 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning. Some say the roots of the New York ball house culture can be traced to the 1930s,when the first underground drag balls were held in and around New York City by white men in gay bars, while others argue that it evolved out of the Harlem ballroom scene in the 1960s. Today’s underground ball house society consists of New York City’s disadvantaged black, Latino, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transexual communities who come together to compete for trophies and prizes.