Barbra Streisand to play Momma Rose in the screen version of Gyspy – Julian Fellowes will write the screenplay

Producers Barbra Streisand and Joel Silver have set Academy Award-winning writer Julian Fellowes to pen the screenplay adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents' Tony Award winning musical, Gypsy, which Streisand and Silver are currently developing for Universal Pictures. Streisand will portray “Momma Rose” in the new version, her first musical film since Yentl in which the Oscar-winning actress and iconic singer starred, produced, co-wrote and directed in 1983.

Fellowes won the Original Screenplay Academy Award for Gosford Park and most recently earned the Emmy and Golden Globe for creating and writing the acclaimed miniseries, Downton Abbey. His musical theatre work includes adapting the script for Disney's stage production of Mary Poppins.

Gypsy has exhilarated audiences on both stage and screen since its first Broadway run in 1959 with Ethel Merman. Since then, the compelling story based on the memoirs of the famous striptease artist, Gypsy Rose Lee, has spawned numerous reincarnations including the 1962 film starring Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood, four Broadway revivals, as well as a made-for-television movie.

Gypsy marks Silver's first foray into Broadway movie musicals after a career of producing several commercially-successful films including the Lethal Weapon, The Matrix, Die Hard and Sherlock Holmes franchises.

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.