It’s not about being smart, it’s about being alive

Rogers and Hammerstein changed Broadway. They took it forward by making it less a geographical location where hits were born, and more a standalone genre with new rules and regulations. With their exotic but defiantly non-metropolitan locations, they also took it back to a time when the book drove the songs, back to the time of light opera and operetta. … Certainly, ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’’ didn’t have the urban smarts of Rogers and Hart, but as Sondheim himself later responded, ‘It’s not about being smart, it’s about being alive.’

B. Stanley, Let's do it: the birth of pop (2022), 436

Evita left history to its own devices and made gobs of money

Both Sweeney and Evita were expensive productions with stunning stage direction by Harold Prince. Both won seven Tony awards, including Best Musical, in adjoining seasons. The key difference: Sweeney Todd made theatrical history but lost money, while Evita left history to its own devices and made gobs of money. This was not lost on producers and investors. It is easy to advocate artistic merit over financial concerns, but answer this: if you were investing $100,000 or more of your own money.

J. Kenrick, Musical theatre: a history (2008), 341