Broadway composer and lyricist Jerry Herman (b. 1931) is a proponent of the "diva musical" who enjoyed enormous success with such classics as Hello, Dolly! (1964), Mame (1966), and La Cage aux Folles (1983). With the advent of AIDS in the 1980s, however, many theater-goers turned against Herman's "upbeat, feel-good" musicals in favor of darker, more ambivalent productions.