CINDERELLA certainly hasn't held up as strong as MATILDA has, in terms of the family shows, and ALADDIN seems primed to have a long healthy run. We'll see when (or maybe if, though I doubt ALADDIN has a LION KING-like run in its future) the dust settles how long ALADDIN lasts when tickets are readily available. NEWSIES has done quite well at staying popular once it stopped selling out. CINDERELLA doesn't seem likely to hold on to see another summer, but I was saying that last fall and they rebounded with Fran Drescher so who knows?
Words don't deserve that kind of malarkey. They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good anymore…I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.