The 82-year-old writer hopes that there will be movement on a previously reported plan to bring the 1968 musical comedy (based on Billy Wilder's "The Apartment") back to Broadway.

[caption id="attachment_303" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Sean Hayes
photo by Joan Marcus"][/caption]

Simon penned the libretto, and Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote the songs, helping to usher in a period when a musicals finally made contact with a modern pop-rock sound (coinciding with Hair, it turns out).

Simon was happy with a 2008 reading of the show that featured Sean Hayes ("Will & Grace," Encores! Summer Stars' Damn Yankees), but no production has yet been announced. Conversations among producers continue, we are told.

At a reading on Oct. 18, 2008, Hayes played Chuck Baxter, the role originated by Tony winner Jerry Orbach, and Anne Hathaway ("The Princess Diaries, " "Rachel Getting Married," Central Park's Twelfth Night) played Fran Kubelik, created by Jill O'Hara (together, they sing the show's hit, "I'll Never Fall in Love Again"). Fans of the score are hoping that the outcome isn't "a guy with a pin to burst your bubble."