Theater News

Sarah Jessica Parker to Star in Film Version of Gilman’s Spinning into Butter

Sarah Jessica Parker 
(Photo © Joseph Marzullo)
Sarah Jessica Parker
(Photo © Joseph Marzullo)

Sarah Jessica Parker will star in and co-produce a film version of Rebecca Gilman’s critically acclaimed play Spinning into Butter. Mark Brokaw, currently represented on Broadway by The Constant Wife, will make his big-screen directing debut with the film, for which Gilman is writing the screenplay. Shooting is scheduled to begin in October.

First produced in 1999 by Chicago’s Goodman Theater — which is currently showcasing Gilman’s DollhouseSpinning into Butter tells the story of Sarah Daniels (to be played by Parker), a New England college Dean who is thrust into a racial hate crime investigation involving an African-American student.

Lincoln Center Theater produced the show at the Mitzi Newhouse Theater in 2000, starring Hope Davis, Daniel Jenkins, Stephen Pasquale, and Jai Rodriguez under the direction of Daniel Sullivan.

Parker, who began her acting career as a child, has been seen on Broadway in the title role of Annie, and in the revivals of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (opposite her husband Matthew Broderick) and Once Upon a Mattress. She won both the Emmy and Golden Globe Award for her portrayal of Carrie Bradshaw on the hit HBO series Sex and the City. Parker will be seen later this year in the film Strangers with Candy; she recently completed filming The Family Stone, with Diane Keaton and Claire Danes, and is currently shooting the romantic comedy Failure to Launch opposite Matthew McConaughey.

Brokaw’s stage directing credits include the Manhattan Theater Club production of Reckless and the Off-Broadway premiere of Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive (both starring Mary Louise Parker), as well as the Off-Broadway productions of The Dying Gaul, As Bees in Honey Drown, and This Is Our Youth.

Gilman’s other plays include Boy Gets Girl, Blue Surge, and an adaptation of Carson McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Chicago’s Eclipse Theater is devoting its 2005-2006 season to Gilman’s work, including its own production of Spinning into Butter.