Playbill On-Line has learned that Monty's choreographer, Jerry Mitchell, is also attached to the project, making it a full Monty reunion for the collaborators. O'Brien directed The Full Monty, which opened the same season as The Producers (2000-01) and was expected to take the Best Musical Tony until Mel Brooks and Co. showed up.

Mitchell and O'Brien collaborated on Hairspray. Mitchell's next Broadway project is Never Gonna Dance, the new musical using Jerome Kern songs.

The librettist for the new stage musical version of the Steve Martin-Michael Caine movie is Jeffrey Lane, whose TV writing credits include "Mad About You," "Bette" and "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd."

The show is expected to take the same path The Full Monty did: start at San Diego's Old Globe and move to Broadway.

Although work is in the early stages, it's expected to emerge at the Old Globe in mid-2004 leading to a Broadway bow in 2004-05, Playbill On-Line has learned. The show is said to be a pure book musical comedy, tapping into Yazbek's knack for comedy songs (memorable in Full Monty was a song about suicide called "Big Ass Rock"). Yazbek's score for Monty won a Drama Desk Award and ran a gamut of styles, including yearning ballads, up-tempo Latin dance and burlesque strip. The composer-lyricist was a Broadway virgin before Monty. As a recording artist, he is heard on several albums (visit www.davidyazbek.com). He has composed incidental music for plays, films and TV. Producers David Brown and Marty Bell are partnering to bring the 1988 film comedy to the musical stage. "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" was directed by Frank Oz and concerned two con men (Martin and Caine) in the French Riviera who try to swindle a woman (played by Glenne Headly). Stage star Dana Ivey also appeared in the film, which was based on the 1964 David Niven-Marlon Brando pic, "Bedtime Story."