Mariah Carey will star in Tennessee, an independent drama to be directed by Aaron Woodley (Rhinoceros Eyes) from a script by Russell Schaumberg, reports Variety. The film will be produced by Lee Daniels (Monster's Ball) and shoots in New Mexico and Tennessee this spring.

Carey plays a waitress who sets off with two brothers to find their estranged father. Their goal: Get dad involved in saving their younger brother, who has leukemia. While Carey's movie resume is overshadowed by the disappointing 2001 film Glitter, Daniels got the idea to cast her after watching her Grammy-winning album "The Emancipation of Mimi" become the biggest selling disc of 2005 and viewing her work in 2002's WiseGirls.

"I never saw 'Glitter,' but I liked her work in the other film. Because this character is interracial and struggles with all sorts of issues because of that, I thought she was perfect," said Daniels, who also produced "The Woodsman" and made his directing debut on the Helen Mirren-Cuba Gooding Jr. starrer "Shadowboxer" (Variety).

Russell Schaumburg has written numerous feature-length film screenplays, including “Tennessee” and “The Man in the Woods”. Both placed among the top 50 finalists in the prestigious Chesterfield Writer’s Film Project. He was also a semifinalist in The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting program. Lee Daniels, producer of “Monster’s Ball” and “The Woodsman,” optioned Schaumburg’s “Tennessee” this past May, and its upcoming production was recently announced in Daily Variety.

“Tennessee” is a story about two brothers who must return to their boyhood home in East Tennessee from New Mexico to find their abusive father when one of the brothers falls ill and needs a life-saving bone marrow transplant from the very man they ran from many years ago (Comingsoon.net).


THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL
Mariah Carey has chosen to make her theatrical debut on the West End stage recreating a role made famous by Marilyn Monroe on the big screen.

Ms Carey, a singer with a tremendous voice, will star in Terence Rattigan's play, The Sleeping Prince, which as a 1957 movie vehicle for Ms Monroe and Laurence Olivier was known as The Prince And The Showgirl. The singer will begin rehearsals in January and take the stage at, possibly, the Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in late February or early March.

Ms Carey's managers in New York and Los Angeles insist she is serious about wanting to act. She has been having lessons in voice projection, diction and in how to walk on and off stage with grace and elegance. The whole package. She's desperate to be part of a theatre company and wants to be treated as a thespian, not a star. She will leave her diva at the stage door because it is her dream - indeed, she believes, her destiny - to play the role of Elsie the showgirl on the London stage. The play is about an American showgirl appearing in London while a European Prince is visiting the city.

Representatives of the Rattigan estate confirmed the plan to bring the play to the West End. There's a song in it that Ms Carey will perform during what is hoped to be an 18-week run. The Sleeping Prince's producer, Bill Kenwright, was not available for comment as he was preparing to travel to New York for the opening on Sunday of his sell-out production of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.


THE SWEET SCIENCE
In 2004, Anthony Esposito and Mariah Carey confirmed her appearance in this film. Carey was about to star in the project as a determined boxing manager who drafts an unknown female boxer to make a name for them both. Gary Goldman ("Total Recall"), Stan Seidel ("One Night at McCool's") and Rick Angres penned the screenplay. "Wisegirls" producer Anthony Esposito was set to produce through his Leading Pictures along with Meg Liberman and Cami Patton. Although producers were eyeing a start for "Science” at the end of 2004, the movie was never entered production.