Musicals Need Less Big Spectacle, More Small-Scale Daring

“It’s not the public’s fault that we haven’t had a musical as shockingly pertinent as, say, West Side Story for so long. … But orchestras, chorus lines and dancers are now almost solely the domain of the Webber-style spectacle; put simply, nobody else can afford them. New productions by smaller theatres must depend instead on actor-musicians and a fair amount of inventiveness.”