[1] The show consisted of satirical sketches loosely themed around what Perelman saw as "the widespread yearning for creativity" among untalented members of the American public; he pointed to an incident wherein an elevator operator told him "I'm having trouble with my second act.
The production starred Bert Lahr, who played five roles over the course of the evening: a scheming Hollywood producer, a lecherous garbage-disposal magnate, an enfeebled millionaire, a fame-hungry judge, and a female editor of erotica.
[4] Perelman did "at least" 10 rewrites of the script before a heavily altered version of the play opened on Broadway on December 26, 1962 at the Music Box Theatre, with a cast that included Lahr, Alice Ghostley, Charlotte Rae, and Larry Hagman.
[1] The Beauty Part opened during the 1962-1963 New York City newspaper strike, meaning that very few reviews appeared and the play could not be advertised in print.
In subsequent years, the play's commercial failure has been attributed to high production costs, mismanagement, and the fact that Perelman's dialogue, "steeped in syntactical invention and idiomatic Yiddish," may have been more suited to the page.