Oprah in Talks to Star in RUINED Film

According to Deadline.com Oprah Winfrey is currently in talks to star in a film adaptation of Lynn Nottage's RUINED. The Pulitzer Prize-winning play is being translated to the big screen by HBO Films, with Oprah Winfrey and Kate Forte serving as executive producers.

Ruined takes place in a small town in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, where Mama Nadi runs a cozy brothel where a soldier can put down his weapon and spend the evening in the company of beautiful women - for a price. Mama Nadi both protects and profits from the young women who work for her, and she is determined to keep the war at bay and the money flowing at any cost. But it's the hope of these courageous women that ultimately prevails. Expertly navigating relationships and politics, Ruined is rich with humor and music, celebrating the triumph of the human spirit.

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Winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Ruined was extended multiple times off-Broadway and has earned numerous awards, including the Obie Award for Best New American Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play. Variety wrote that Nottage "has crafted a work that speaks eloquently of the monstrous acts bred by war, and of the courage and compromises required to survive them," while The Chicago Tribune raved, "Sincere, passionate, courageous and acutely argued, Ruined is a remarkable theatrical accomplishment." And according to the Wall Street Journal, "Ruined, in which [Nottage] shows us what things have come to in the bloody, brutal land that dares to call itself the Democratic Republic of Congo, leaves no doubt that the author...is one of the best playwrights that we have."

Lynn Nottage won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Ruined, as well as the Obie and Drama Desk Awards for Best New Play. She is also the author of Intimate Apparel, which received the 2004 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play, the Outer Critics Circle Best Play Award, the John Gassner Award, the American Theatre Critics/Steinberg 2004 New Play Award and the 2004 Francesca Primus Award. Her next play, Fabulation (Obie Award), was first produced by Playwrights Horizons and recently received a highly acclaimed production at the Tricycle Theatre in London. Her other plays, including Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Mud, River, Stone and Las Meninas, have been produced at theaters throughout the country, including South Coast Rep, Alliance Theatre, Second Stage, Vineyard Theatre, Crossroads Theatre Company, Intiman Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Yale Rep and The Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, among many others. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious 2004 PEN/Laura Pels Award for literary excellence and the MacArthur "Genius" Award, as well as fellowships from Manhattan Theatre Club, New Dramatists and the New York Foundation for the Arts, where she is a member of the Artists Advisory Board. Ms. Nottage is an alumna of New Dramatists and a graduate oF Brown University and the Yale School of Drama, where she is currently a visiting lecturer.

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