ABSTRACT
Cats, Starlight Express, Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera, Miss Saigon, Sunset Boulevard- Lloyd Webber and the team of Schonberg and Boublil were sending multiple blockbusters to London and New York theaters during the 1980s and, in most cases, saw those shows stay on stage year after year. However, despite these powerhouses, there was still room for other shows in the same decade. Some writers produced their first hits in this period, while other authors changed directions or partnerships, with varying degrees of success. To an increasing extent, however, the enormous financial burden of mounting a Broadway or West End show was determining the nature of many productions. Like many writers of the 1930s and 1940s, Rice made his way to Hollywood, where he teamed up at the Disney Studios with Alan Menken, partnerless since the death of Howard Ashman in 1991.
