And it would appear that Brustein appreciated such humor, according to his e-mails responding to the snippets he was receiving.

“I love it so much I’m almost willing to give up sex myself,” wrote Brustein in an e-mail dated March 19, 2001.

Indeed, the script seemed headed for success even after the production schedule was pushed back to allow Gelbart more time to write.

“The new stuff is priceless,” Brustein writes in an e-mail dated just over four months later, “The more you write, the more it seems as if you know our acting company inside out—the roles are perfect for them.”

Gelbart, too, celebrated the collaboration.

“It was enjoyable,” he says looking back. “[It was} made even more enjoyable by Brustein’s wildly enthusiastic comments.”

As they hummed along, the two seemed little bothered by the departure of the original songwriting duo of Arnold Weinstein and William Bolcom, whom they quickly replaced with Academy Award-winning composer Alan Mencken (Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast) and Tony Award-winning lyricist (and Harvard Law School grad) David Zippel (City of Angels).

Brustein was impressed by the new team’s music, and wrote, shortly after receiving a sample of the music, “The CD arrived and it’s glorious.”

And yet, nary a month later, Gelbart, Mencken and Zippel were all gone from the project, and the relationship between Gelbart and Brustein had become tabloid fodder.

THE “DEAR LARRY LETTER”

The situation may have begun to sour when Yeargan refused to design the play after seeing the script. He “could not bring himself” to do it, reports Brustein.

The nail in the coffin probably came, though, when Jones refused to perform the script as written.

“It wasn’t the vulgarity was the problem, it was that [the script] was unsuccessful,” she explains.

Jones cites the excessive length of Gelbart’s script as a large part of the problem, but stresses her eagerness to remain involved with the project and work with Brustein.