Mel Brooks was so brazen in its satire that major studios would not touch it, nor would many exhibitors. Brooks finally found an independent distributor who released it as an art film, a specialized attraction. In 1968, Brooks received an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the film, beating such writers as Stanley Kubrick and John Cassavetes. "The Producers" became a smash underground hit, first on the nationwide college circuit, then in revivals and on home video. Brooks later turned it into a musical, which became hugely successful on Broadway, receiving an unprecedented twelve Tony awards. With the moderate financial success of
The Woman in White (musical) Halcombe was performed by standby Lisa Brescia on Broadway during Maria Friedman's absence. The Woman in White (musical) The Woman in White is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Zippel with a book by Charlotte Jones, based on the novel "The Woman in White" written by Wilkie Collins, and elements of "The Signal-Man" by Charles Dickens. It ran for nineteen months in the West End and three months on Broadway, making it one of Lloyd Webber's shortest-running shows. The musical was produced in a workshop at Lloyd Webber's Sydmonton Festival (Hampshire, England) in July 2003. The musical opened