Much has been written about the importance and impact of the concept musical. Drama theorist and critic Kathryn Edney believes that the concept musical "is rarely popular or particularly profitable, although it often garners critical praise, scholarly attention, and a cult following among the musical theater cognoscenti." She postulates that the discrepancies between the concept musical and megamusical are a direct result of the efforts of Sondheim and Lloyd Webber, whose "competing musical and personal styles... polarized fans of this genre. One is not supposed to enjoy both Cats and Company."[1] Likewise considering the relationship between the concept musical and megamusical, Siropoulos finds that the concept musical "is the product of a culture permeated by spectacle... The concept musical's disproportional concentration on the visual aspects of performance goes hand in hand with representational ends, an obligation to represent, however obliquely, the external world."[2]
Siropoulos also argues that Priynce, over any of his peers, is the true link between the concept musical and megamusical. Prince's work on Company and Evita, in particular, showcase his abilities in directing two distinct styles.
Like the megamusical, [Company] undermines the narrative organization of the musical and foregrounds the visual aspects of the performance. For the staging of Evita, Prince employed and further developed the directorial vocabulary he cultivated in his concept musicals, creating, in the process, the first international megamusical blockbuster. In a sense, Prince can be considered the father of both the concept musical and the megamusical, linking, in this way, two forms of musical theatre: one of the most critically acclaimed with the one that has generally been considered as an anomaly and aberration in the history of the twentieth-century musical theatre.
— Vagelis Siropoulos, Evita, the Society of the Spectacle and the Advent of the Megamusical
Dramaturg Scott McMillin argues that the concept musical built upon the theories of Rodgers and Hammerstein to bring the genre into the modern era, allowing the musical to become "arguably the major form of drama produced so far in America."Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).