Sondheim had participated in three straight hits, but his next show – 1964's "Anyone Can Whistle" – was a nine-performance bomb (although it introduced Angela Lansbury to musical theatre). "Do I Hear a Waltz?", based on Arthur Laurents' 1952 play "The Time of the Cuckoo", was intended as another Rodgers and Hammerstein musical with Mary Martin in the lead. A new lyricist was needed, and Laurents and Rodgers' daughter, Mary, asked Sondheim to fill in. Although Richard Rodgers and Sondheim agreed that the original play did not lend itself to musicalization, they began writing the musical version. The project had many problems, Rodgers' alcoholism among them; Sondheim, calling it the one project he regretted, then decided to work only when he could write both music and lyrics. He asked author and playwright James Goldman to join him as bookwriter for a new musical. Inspired by a "New York Times" article about a gathering of former Ziegfeld Follies showgirls, it was entitled "The Girls Upstairs" (and would later become "Follies").