Margulies provided part of the writing pedigree for the ABC drama series "Once and Again" (1999- ) by scripting its Thanksgiving episode, then picked up the Pulitzer for "Dinner with Friends" (2000), a play which actually opened in Paris before New York, enjoying success and an extended run at the Comedie des Champs-Elyses. In it, he keenly explored the dissolution of supposedly steady marriages and the impact on friendships between the split spouses and couples who remain together. His next piece, "God and Vengeance" (also 2000), was an adaptation of a 1906 Yiddish play that had received numerous productions around the world. Boasting perhaps the first lesbian relationship ever depicted on the Broadway stage when it debuted there in 1923, it generated a furor resulting in its producer and 12 actors being indicted by a grand jury for "the crime of presenting an obscene, indecent, immoral and impure theatrical production." Though Margulies transferred the action from a 20th-century Polish village to Manhattan in 1923 to make it more relevant to modern audiences, its inherent melodrama was a bit grating to contemporary sensibilities, and its "cast of thousands" did not bode well for a commercial move beyond its regional beginnings.