When Bad Cinderella closed in June of this year, it signified the first time in 43 years that Broadway was without an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, and it became the second shortest run ever for one of his musicals on Broadway. Bad Cinderella also represented the second collaboration between Lloyd Webber and lyricist David Zippel. Their first show together was The Woman in White, which began in London in 2004 (starring Michael Crawford) and then opened at the Marquis Theatre the following year (starring Maria Friedman).

By the time Woman in White came to New York, it had been 10 years since Sunset Boulevard and it would be another 10 till School of Rock. During this interim, between 1997 and 2015, Lloyd Webber didn’t have an original musical or revival last more than 9 months on Broadway (including the Evita revival I previously did an episode on), so I guess you could say he was in a bit of a dry spell. Nonetheless, The Woman in White could’ve and probably should’ve done better, and in this episode we’ll explore some of the reasons it didn’t—and how a white rat ended up stealing the show.

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Closing Night is a production of WINMI Media with Patrick Oliver Jones as host and executive producer. Dan Delgado is the editor and co-producer, not only for this podcast but also for his own movie podcast called The Industry. Maria Clara Ribeiro is co-producer, and a big thank you goes to Leah Horowitz for sharing her experiences with this short-lived show and its talented cast.

Click here to find the transcript for this episode and a full list of links and resources used.