Thomas Bradshaw to Collaborate With Winfrey on New HBO Drama

Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Films has teamed up with the provocative playwright Thomas Bradshaw to develop an hour-long HBO drama series about the first black president of a prestigious liberal arts college, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which described the show as depicting the president's family as “engaging in agonizing personal battles and struggling with dark obsessions.”

Just how dark remains to be seen. But the series, if it makes it to production, will represent a step towards the mainstream for Mr. Bradshaw, 32, whose deadpan treatment of subjects like incest, pedophilia and racially motivated murder has won critical acclaim (along with a fair share of outrage) in venues mostly far from Broadway.

“When I first started writing, I didn't think there was anything shocking about my material,” Mr. Bradshaw, whose plays include “Burning,” “Strom Thurmond Is Not a Racist” and “Job” (currently running at the Flea Theater in Manhattan), tol d The New York Times earlier this month. “But I learned very quickly that there was.” He declined to comment on the HBO project this week.

There is no guarantee that the cable network will pick up the series. In recent years, shows involving the novelist Jonathan Franzen and the Tony winning playwright and screenwriter John Logan have not gone beyond the pilot stage.