Unless I am mistaken, all of the examples of Best Musical winners you mentioned were transfers, not revivals. When it is the same production, it is new. Likewise, a better example for you might be CLYBOURNE PARK, which had been performed around the world between Playwrights Horizons and Broadway, yet the general consensus was that the play was still making its first go-around... once a number of years have passed and the Broadway production can be considered separate from the work's initial presentation, then it is considered a revival.
Most often, this is a common-sense rule. That's really the criteria. Of the four Best Musical winners there, would you in any logical state of mind claim to call it a Revival just because it had already been produced in NYC but hadn't been on Broadway even though it was a transfer? Likewise, the inverse: would you in any right mind suggest that ASSASSINS should be a new musical, even though it was almost 15 years old at that time, the rights had been released and community, regional, and school productions had happened around the world?
It's just common sense.
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.
