It’s been a while since we’ve seen Oprah Winfrey do any acting, but that’s just what she’s got planned for herself once her long running talk-show comes to a close at the end of this month.

Don’t expect her to jump into movie roles though, she wants to take on Broadway!

Says the media icon; “I have a stack of plays in my bag right now that I am reading, and just this past weekend, I was in New York meeting with producers. We were just talking about what would be the best route to take. But yes, this is really going to happen. … Life is too short.”

“I think that an ensemble production is the way I should go.”

The Chicago Tribune reports on Oprah’s career change;

Winfrey said she is currently talking with several different Broadway producers and directors, and she is anxious not to taint those conversations.

All of those producers and directors, it goes without saying, are delighted to be having such a chat.

Last December, news broke that Winfrey was in talks to star in an HBO Films adaptation of “Ruined,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lynn Nottage play about the traumatic lives of young women in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. The main character is Mama Nadi, a Mother Courage-like pragmatist who runs a brothel but also protects and tends to the young women in her charge and whose mantra is “survival is the only art I recognize.” “Ruined,” which premiered in 2008 at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and moved to the Manhattan Theatre Club in 2009, has never appeared on Broadway, leaving some Broadway producers wondering if Winfrey could be persuaded to play that role live, before filming it for HBO. “Ruined” certainly reflects Winfrey’s interest in Africa and her taste for a weighty, ensemble-driven piece.

But Winfrey said she has not made a decision about what she is going to do, or with whom she is going to do it. She also has an affinity for August Wilson, but that bag of scripts (and the stack on her desk) contains a variety of pieces.

There is little doubt, though, that Winfrey is Broadway-bound. Fast. No dream deferred.

I hope Oprah does makes it to Broadway, I would totally go see her shows! But I’ll miss her talk-show… and who knows, maybe she’ll do another daytime show on her new O.W.N. network.