Stephen Sondheim suggested evening the percentage at two percent each, but Sondheim refused because he wanted the credit. Sondheim later said he wished "someone stuffed a handkerchief in my mouth because it would have been nice to get that extra percentage". After "West Side Story" opened, Shevelove lamented the lack of "low-brow comedy" on Broadway and mentioned a possible musical based on Plautus' Roman comedies. When Sondheim was interested in the idea he called a friend, Larry Gelbart, to co-write the script. The show went through a number of drafts, and was interrupted briefly by Sondheim's next project. In 1959, Sondheim was
Stephen Sondheim Willson's "Rock Island" from "The Music Man". The show was revived on Broadway in 2002. Sondheim and Lapine's last work together was the rhapsodic "Passion" (1994), adapted from Ettore Scola's Italian film "Passione D'Amore". With a run of 280 performances, "Passion" was the shortest-running show to win a Tony Award for Best Musical. "Assassins" opened off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on December 18, 1990, with music and lyrics by Sondheim and its book by John Weidman. The musical closed on February 16, 1991, after 73 performances. Its idea derived from Sondheim's days as a panelist at producer Stuart Ostrow's Musical Theater