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 needed money for rent. The network disliked the title and Sondheim's alternative, "A Little Night Music". After Sondheim finished "Evening Primrose", Jerome Robbins asked him to adapt Bertolt Brecht's "The Measures Taken" despite the composer's general dislike of Brecht's work. Robbins wanted to adapt another Brecht play, "The Exception and the Rule", and asked John Guare to adapt the book. Leonard Bernstein had not written for the stage in some time, and his contract as conductor of the New York Philharmonic was ending. Sondheim was invited to Robbins' house in the hope that Guare would convince him to write the