ABC snatches up Y&R's Hunter King to lead new primetime pilot

The Young and the Restless' Hunter King (Summer Newman) gushes that she's "the absolute luckiest girl in the world" after being cast as the lead in a new ABC comedy pilot called Prospect. But will the Western project take her away from Genoa City?

The Young and the Restless' Hunter King may be trading in the trendy heels she wears as Summer Newman to permanently don a pair of prairie boots. The actress has been cast in the leading role of an ABC comedic Western pilot called Prospect, which, as its name subtly implies, definitely has prospects.

The single-camera comedy pilot from I Hate My Teenage Daughter creators Sherry Bilsing-Graham and Ellen Kreamer will follow King in the role of idealistic young woman Abigail Lansing, who moves to the frontier to be a schoolteacher but finds her ideals quickly tested when she learns that her students are rowdy ranch hands instead of children.

Reads the official description on Deadline, "King's Abigail Lansing is proper, smart, a little awkward and chatty but always positive, friendly and hopeful, with a healthy dose of 19th century feminism. Abigail is a young woman from Boston who is thrilled to be able to set off on her own adventure as a schoolteacher in the western prairie town of Prospect. Somewhat starry-eyed, she envisions herself preparing adorable young children for their future with an education. Abigail discovers when she gets to Prospect that it's not going to be what she thought it was. For one thing, she has to teach adult men, not children, and her living situation is a little more rustic, and awkward, than she expected. Abigail has to rethink some of her expectations but decides with characteristic spunk and optimism that there's good work to be done here in Prospect -- on her own terms."

An ecstatic King took to social media to share her excitement about landing the leading role in the pilot, which will be directed by Randall Einhorn.

"Someone pinch me because this doesn't feel real!" the actress shared on Twitter. "I feel like the absolute luckiest girl in the world to be a part of this pilot! Thank you to everyone involved in helping make this happen!"

Hunter King joined the cast of Y&R in 2012 and has been playing the role of Victor Newman's granddaughter since that time, winning two Daytime Emmy Awards and five Daytime Emmy nominations for her work on the CBS soap opera. She is currently coming off a four-season run as Clementine on the CBS single-camera comedy Life in Pieces, where she began in a recurring capacity but was bumped up to series regular at the start of season two.

King was able to successfully juggle both her daytime role on Y&R and her primetime role on Life in Pieces, which was made easier by the fact that both shows are on the same network. At this time, it's unclear how her large role in Prospect would affect her role as Y&R's Summer if the series were to get picked up by ABC. But as it goes in the world of Westerns, you've got to take the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Keep checking back to Soap Central for updates on King's project as they come.

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How do you feel about Hunter King landing the lead role in ABC's comedy pilot Prospect? What are your thoughts on the premise of the Western series? How would you feel if King had to leave Y&R to star in her new project? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.

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