Sean Cercone, the executive director of Chicago Muse, the musical-development organization formed out of what used to be Theatre Building Chicago, said late Friday afternoon that he is "no longer associated" with the organization. He declined to comment further.

Most recently, Cercone produced the Broadway musical "The Story of My Life" at the Biograph Theatre.

The former artistic director of the Carousel Theatre in Akron, Cercone joined Chicago Muse in December, 2009. Board chairman Michael Rosenbaum confirmed that Cercone had left, but declined to discuss the reasons. However, he also said that the board is "very disappointed that things worked out this way."

"But we wish Sean all the best," Rosenbaum continued.

Rosenbaum said that the plan is to replace Cercone, but that the board will first conduct a strategic review.

THEATER REVIEW: "The Story of My Life" ★★ Through Jan. 2 at the Victory Gardens Biograph, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave.; $46-$56 at 773-871-3000 and www.victorygardens.org

“The Story of My Life” is a theatrical tale in search of a happy ending. This two-character musical about lifelong male friends had a disastrous 2009 Broadway run — if run isn't an inapt term for a show that lasted five regular performances on the Cruel White Way. This unhappy endeavor attracted reviews so accumulatively unflattering, most mere mortals would question their desire ever to write a story again. For the rest of their life.

But, to their great collective credit, the distinguished original director, Richard Maltby Jr., and the capable original authors (Neil Bartram, who penned the music and lyrics, and Brian Hill, who wrote the book) dusted themselves off and went back into the studio for rewrites, recrafting scenes and adding a song. They found a new producing partner in the Chicago Music Theatre (aka Chicago Muse). And, on Tuesday night they brought their much-maligned baby — with the accomplished, Broadway-caliber cast of Davis Duffield and Jack Noseworthy — to the holiday slot at the kinder, gentler, 299-seat Biograph Theater in Sweet Home Chicago, and, once again, as gutsy artists do, cast their earnest bread upon the waters.

It did not, alas, float.

There's no shame attached. I did not see “The Story of My Life” on Broadway, although I see almost all new musicals there. In this case, my ticket was for the first Tuesday of the run. Too late. So a comparison I cannot make. But I cannot imagine this well-meaning piece on today's Broadway, not so much for qualitative reasons (more about that in a moment) but because this is an intimate and rather slight original piece that has nary an ironic, arch, postmodern bone in its body.

Malcolm Gets, left, and Will Chase starred in the short-lived Broadway production of “The Story of My Life.”

At Monday night's Joseph Jefferson Awards in Oakbrook Terrace — where the coronation of “Ragtime” was the high-water mark of the entire creative history of Drury Lane Productions — Richard Maltby Jr. (right) sat quietly in the audience. The 73-year-old, Tony Award-winning author (and/or director, and/or lyricist) of such blue-chip titles as “Miss Saigon,” “Fosse,” “Ain't Misbehavin',” “Starting Here, Starting Now,” “Big” and “Baby” (and so on) went unnoticed by most attendees.

Afterward, a cheerful and genial Maltby was musing about the Chicago appetite for theatrical risk. “It's really remarkable here,” he said. “I just really like it.”

Maltby has been seen a lot of Chicago shows. In one weekend, he said, he went to see David Cromer's “A Streetcar Named Desire” at Writers' Theatre (my choice for the best production of last season) and TimeLine Theatre's “The Farnsworth Invention” (which did nicely at the Jeffs), and he thrilled the mostly unknown Actors' Theatre by showing up at its non-Equity production of “Baby.”

These sightings are partly because Maltby's daughter, Emily, is studying theater at Northwestern University. But it's also because Maltby is an inveterate creature of the theater who was thinking of directing a show in Chicago.

That show is “The Story of My Life,” a two-character musical about a pair of lifelong male friends, penned by Neil Bartram and Brian Hill. On Broadway during the 2008-09 season, “The Story of My Life,” also directed there by Maltby, opened and closed in five days.

I had a ticket to see it a week after its opening, but the show was already gone. Very few people actually saw the piece.

There is to be another opportunity to see a revised version (including a different cast, a retooled book and at least one new song). On Nov. 9, “The Story of My Life” will become the inaugural production of the Chicago Music Theatre, the group that once was known as Theatre Building Chicago before the venue was sold. New executive director Sean Cercone has said that he wants to return the company to its core mission of producing new musicals.

Ever since its founding in 1977 by the late Byron Schaffer Jr., the Theatre Building (or, in more recent years, the Theatre Building Chicago) has served as an incubator for small, itinerant theater companies: Absolute Theatre Company, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, American Blues Theater. The list of prior tenants is long and distinguished.

In March of this year, Theatre Building Chicago was sold to a secretive group of investors, who hired a group called Lukaba Productions to take over the booking and management. Many of the original developers of the building were less than delighted by the board's decision to unload its biggest asset, but that's water under the bridge. Lukaba and the Theatre Building are now known as  Stage 773. That's the name on the door.

Which begs a fascinating question. What's left of the Theatre Building Chicago?

Well, Sean Cercone for starters.

Cercone, the former artistic director of the now-defunct Carousel Dinner Theatre in Akron, Ohio, was hired as the artistic director of Theatre Building Chicago not long before the sale.