Amy Sherman-Palladino Recalls GYPSY Film Talks with Stephen Sondheim- 'The Best 15 Hours of My Life'

Amy Sherman-Palladino makes her Broadway writing debut this season with her adapted book for Once Upon a Mattress, which opens on Monday, August 12. Mattress isn't her first try at rewriting a musical, however. As BroadwayWorld reported in 2019, Sherman-Palladino was called on to pen a new script for a new film adaptation of Gypsy the same year - a project that has not yet come to fruition despite many years of development. 

"I wrote a movie version of Gypsy, which has never seen the light of day, but I’m still hopeful," she explained in a recent interview with the LA Times. "I remember getting on the phone with Stephen Sondheim, and after all the wonderful compliments, he goes, 'I just have a few thoughts, if you want to hear them.' I’m like, 'Oh my God, of course!' And he goes, 'I want to hurry, because page one…' It was like 15 hours, and it was the best 15 hours of my life."

A previous iteration of the project was is talks in 2016, when film and stage legend Barbra Streisand had signed on to portray Mama Rose. At the time, the film was to be directed by Barry Levinson with a script by Richard LaGravanese. Streisand is no longer associated with the project.

Read the full interview at the LA Times. 

Gyspy is a musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. Gypsy is loosely based on the 1957 memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, the famous striptease artist, and focuses on her mother, Rose, whose name has become synonymous with "the ultimate show business mother." 

It debuted on Broadway in 1959, was last revived in 2008 (starring Patti LuPone and Laura Benanti), and is coming back to Broadway this fall in a revival led by Audra McDonald.