Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films are developing a new drama in conjunction with HBO. As yet untitled, the show will tell the tale of the first black president of a liberal arts club, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The central character is “thrust into national headlines,” along with his family, “forcing them to present an idyllic public façade, all while engaging in agonizing personal battles and struggling with dark obsessions.”
The exact nature of those dark obsessions, of course, is not for us to know, just yet but we’re excited to watch the show take shape. The playwright Thomas Bradshaw (The Bereaved, Southern Promises, Dawn) is on board as a writer and to act as an executive producer, alongside Oprah herself and Harpo’s Kate Forte. Bradshaw, 32, is already the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a professor at Northwestern.
Harpo Films first forged a deal with HBO back in 2008. They planned to create a series of movies, documentaries and miniseries for the network. Prior to that, Harpo had a longstanding deal with ABC. Since working with HBO, they have been developing projects such as a TV movie based on The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, with Alan Ball (True Blood). Thus far, none of Harpo’s creations have made it into HBO’s schedule so it will be interesting to see how this one pans out. No scheduling date has been released yet.
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