The Baby And The Bathwater.
But I have to push back a bit on this: "Broadway has been reckoning, slowly, imperfectly, with the idea that musical comedies need to offer female characters full interiority." I know there's a ton of sexism and misogyny in the musical theater canon, and I'm all for addressing that OF COURSE, but can I point out that every single Rogers & Hammerstein "golden age" musical, and a whole bunch of others as well (My Fair Lady? Gypsy? West Side Story?...), have female protagonists? And not just female, but fully realized women characters who are grappling with big, complex problems and are the authors of their own lives (Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific, The King & I, The Sound of Music, etc.).
I completely support this moment of reckoning in the theater, but I want to give credit where credit is due. American musical theater has often been way out front on this stuff.