Musical theatre responsible for "Les Misérables", which became the longest-running international musical hit in history. The team, in collaboration with Richard Maltby Jr., continued to produce hits, including "Miss Saigon", inspired by the Puccini opera "Madama Butterfly". The British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber saw similar success with "Evita", based on the life of Argentina's Eva Perón; "Cats", derived from the poems of T. S. Eliot (both of which musicals originally starred Elaine Paige); "Starlight Express", performed on roller skates; "The Phantom of the Opera", derived from the Gaston Leroux novel, "Le Fantôme de l'Opéra"; and "Sunset Boulevard" (from the classic film of
Musical theatre box office successes, with the notable exceptions of "Fiddler on the Roof", "Cabaret" and "Grease". The 1980s saw the influence of European "mega-musicals", or "pop operas", on Broadway, in the West End and elsewhere. These typically featured a pop-influenced score, had large casts and sets and were identified by their notable effects – a falling chandelier (in "The Phantom of the Opera"), a helicopter landing on stage (in "Miss Saigon") – and big budgets. Many were based on novels or other works of literature. The most important writers of mega-musicals include the French team of Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil,