Barbra as Gypsy is On

No wonder the rapture didn't happen last week, Arthur Laurents arranged for Heaven on Earth shortly before he died a few weeks ago.  The playwright and director signed off on a deal with Universal Pictures and producer Joel Silver to remake a film version of Gypsy starring none other than Miss Barbra Streisand.  This will be Miss Streisand's first screen musical since Yentl in 1983.  Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics for Gypsy, is also in on the development discussions.  The agreement calls for the film to be "substantially similar" to the stage musical, thank God.  

Gypsy was made into a 1962 movie starring Rosalind Russell and a 1993 TV movie starring Bette Midler.  Laurents famously hated the '62 film because he didn't think Russell brought a necessary trashy quality to Rose.          

Arthur Laurents: 1917-2011

Theater giant Arthur Laurents has died at the age of 93.  He was a playwright, screenwriter, and director whose greatest accomplishments included West Side Story, Gypsy, and a string of films from Rope through The Way We Were, to The Turning Point.  He never stopped working.  He directed the 2008 revival of Gypsy starring Patti Lupone and 2009 revival of West Side Story.  Gypsy was a tribute to his partner of 52 years, Tom Hatcher, who died in 2006.  He also attributed Hatcher as the inspiration for the West Side Story revival as Hatcher had given him the idea of having the Sharks speak Spanish.  Laurents also wrote a number of serious plays, including two that premiered in 2009, New Year's Eve and Come Back, Come Back Wherever You Are.  He said of his plays, “Entertainment is dessert, it needs to be balanced by the main course: theater of substance.”