People: Gilbert returns to ‘Prairie’ life

Melissa Gilbert is returning to “Little House on the Prairie” – but this time she’ll be playing the mother of her character from the popular television series.

Gilbert, 44, will play “Ma” Ingalls in a musical version of the “Little House” books that will open at the Minneapolis’ Guthrie Theater this summer. The actress portrayed Laura, the signature character in the ‘70s TV series that starred Michael Landon.

Kara Lindsay will play Laura in the musical. The role of “Pa” Ingalls, Michael Landon’s role in the television show, will be played by Steve Blanchard, who starred for eight years on Broadway as the Beast in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.”

The musical is based on Laura Ingalls Wilder‘s stories about her homesteading family. Previews start July 26, with opening night set for Aug. 15.

This opera is convenient

First it was the film and the book. Now the next stop for Al Gore‘s “An Inconvenient Truth” is … opera? La Scala officials say Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli has been commissioned to produce an opera on the international hit for the 2011 season at the Milan opera house.

“Opera makes you reflect,” Battistelli said, adding that he wants to present it during the 150th anniversary of Italy’s 1861 unification. “I thought it could be a good idea to deal on this important occasion with a subject that involves not only Italy but the world,” Battistelli said.

Marilyn gets new last unveiling

Two reels of silent, 8-millimeter color film titled “On Set With ‘The Misfits,’ ” a behind-the-scenes look at the set of Marilyn Monroe‘s last fully produced feature, will go on the auction block June 12.

The film was shot by amateur photographer Stanley Floyd Kilarr, who shot scenes of the stars and crew during the making of “The Misfits” – the final completed film for both its stars, Monroe and Clark Gable. Gable died Nov. 16, 1960, some two months before the movie’s U.S. release. Monroe died Aug. 5, 1962.

Grammer bounces back

Kelsey Grammer has landed a sitcom pilot for ABC. Cloned from the British series of the same name, “Roman’s Empire” is about a young man who is dumped by his heiress girlfriend but whose life remains inexplicably intertwined with the girl’s overbearing billionaire family, especially its oddball patriarch (Grammer).

Stone cleans up her … act?

Sharon Stone says she decided on her 50th birthday in March to cleanse her spiritual house. “Anybody who isn’t going to be on my side – I got rid of them,” Stone said. “I fired the people out of my life who weren’t working with me successfully. I got rid of the people who weren’t really my friends. I stopped trying to date the men who didn’t really like me.”

The birthday bunch

Actor Tony Curtis is 83. Game show host Chuck Barris is 79. Bassist Too Slim of Riders in the Sky is 60. Singer Suzi Quatro is 58. Keyboardist Billy Powell of Lynyrd Skynyrd is 56. Actor Scott Valentine (“Family Ties”) is 50. Guitarist Kerry King of Slayer is 44. Newsman Anderson Cooper is 41. Country singer Jamie O’Neal is 40. Singers Ariel and Gabriel Hernandez of No Mercy are 37. Actress Lalaine Dupree (“Lizzie McGuire”) is 21.