Into the Woods, which premiered on Broadway in 1987, intertwines such familiar fairy characters as Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and Rapunzel with two Lapine-created characters, a childless Baker and his wife, all of whom must adventure into a forest to achieve their wishes in life.

Marshall earned Tony Award nominations for his choreography for Kiss of the Spider Woman, Damn Yankees, She Loves Me, and Little Me, along with Cabaret, for which he also received a nomination for Best Direction.

In addition, he received an Academy Award nomination for his direction of Chicago, which won the Oscar for Best Picture, and his film version of the musical Nine was nominated for four Academy Awards. Among his other films are Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, its forthcoming sequel and an in-development reworking of The Thin Man.