Posted: Mon., Jul. 11, 2005, 9:00pm PT

Parker buttered up

'Spinning' turns from stage to screen

By Michael Fleming

Parker

A correction was made to this article on July 12, 2005.

Sarah Jessica Parker will star in and produce "Spinning Into Butter," an indie adaptation of Rebecca Gilman's play.

Stage director Mark Brokaw is making his feature debut and Norman Twain and Lou Pitt will produce with Parker. Shooting begins Oct. 10 in New York.

Pic will be fully financed by private investors. Whitsett Hill Films partners Ryan Howe and Mark Davis will exec produce. Gilman is adapting her play.

Parker will play the dean of students at a New England college who is thrust into the investigation of a racial hate crime. She's forced to confront her own feelings about race and her administration's desire to maintain a politically correct posture.

"Spinning Into Butter" opened at Chicago's Goodman Theater in 1999 and played Lincoln Center the following year.

Brokaw has been a Gotham stage fixture, most recently directing "The Constant Wife," "Reckless," the Pulitzer Prize-winning "How I Learned to Drive" and "The Dying Gaul."

Parker is making her feature producing debut through her Pretty Matches shingle. She just wrapped "Family Stone" at 20th Century Fox and is currently filming "Failure to Launch" at Paramount.

Producers Twain and Pitt are working with CAA to set distribution rights to the pic.