By Adam Hetrick
21 Oct 2009

The aborning David Yazbeck-Jeffrey Lane musical adaptation of Pedro Almodóvar's 1988 film "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" received a starry reading at Lincoln Center last week.

Variety reports that Tony Award winners Joanna Gleason (Into the Woods, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) and Paulo Szot (South Pacific) participated in the reading that also included Oscar nominee Salma Hayek ("Frida," "Once Upon a Time in Mexico"), Jessica Biel ("Blade: Trinity," Guys and Dolls at the Hollywood Bowl), Matthew Morrison (South Pacific, Light in the Piazza, "Glee") and Mia Maestro ("Alias").

Tony Award-winning director Bartlett Sher (South Pacific, Light in the Piazza) directed the reading of the musical that has a score by Tony-nominated Dirty Rotten Scoundrels collaborators Yazbeck (score) and Lane (book/lyrics).

Sher also helmed an early summer reading of Women on the Verge for Lincoln Center. Further plans for the musical have not been announced.

The Oscar-nominated film centers on Pepa, a voice-over actress on a mission to deliver an important secret to her philandering boyfriend, Iván. A two-day chase ensues, involving Iván's mentally insane ex-wife, her son Carlos, Shiite terrorists, a mambo-loving taxi driver, gazpacho laced with sleeping pills and a charred bed.