Bette Midler & Sharon Stone Will Lead Big Screen Adaptation of THE TALE OF THE ALLERGIST'S WIFE

According to Variety, Bette Midler will return to the big screen opposite Sharon Stone in a movie adaptation of Charles Busch's play, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife. Andy Fickman will direct the project.

Daryl Roth, Robert Cort, and Jeffrey Melnick will produce.

The original Manhattan Theatre Club production opened on February 29, 2000 and ran for 56 performances. Excellent reviews prompted a move to Broadway. After 25 previews, it opened on November 2, 2000 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, where it ran for 777 performances. The original cast, directed by Lynne Meadow, included Linda Lavin as Marjorie, Tony Roberts as Ira, and Michele Lee as Lee. Later in the run, Lavin was replaced first by Valerie Harper and then by Rhea Perlman, while Richard Kind and Marilu Henner assumed the roles of Ira and Lee.

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In his first play written for a mainstream audience, Busch explores the Upper West Side milieu of aspiring intellectual and middle-aged upper classmatron Marjorie Taub, who lives comfortably with her doctor husband Ira in an expensively furnished condo near Zabar's and spends her days and evenings pursuing culture at various museums and the theatre. Her ongoing effort to improve her mind and soul has brought Marjorie to the conclusion she never will be more than mediocre, a feeling enhanced by her elderly mother's constant complaints about her shortcomings and her husband's altruistic dedication to serving the needs of the homeless. Following an emotional outburst in a Disney Store resulting in considerable breakage, Marjorie retires to the safety of her home to wallow in a mid-life crisis. Unexpectedly invading her depression is flamboyant childhood friend Lee who, much like The Man Who Came to Dinner, becomes entrenched in the Taub household as a seemingly permanent guest, not only drawing Marjorie out of her dark mood, but affecting her marriage as well.

Midler recently wrapped her Tony-winning run in Hello, Dolly! She made her Broadway debut in Fiddler on the Roof, and even then, she understood the importance of doing matinees. Her remarkable career started while singing in New York bathhouses, where she was given the name, "The Divine Miss M."

Her record debut, "The Divine Miss M," earned her a Grammy Award for Best New Artist. In 1979, Bette made her film debut in portraying a doomed and self destructive rock & roll singer in The Rose, for which she earned the Golden Globe for Best Actress, Academy Award nomination, and Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal performance.

In 1988 Bette starred in Beaches, and received her third Grammy Award, Record of the Year, for the film's title song, "Wind Beneath My Wings." Midler garnered her second Best Actress Golden Globe and Academy Award nomination for Mark Rydell's For The Boys. Additional film credits include: Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Ruthless People, Big Business, Scene's From a Mall, Hocus Pocus, The First Wives Club, The Stepford Wives, Then She Found Me and The Women.