1965’s “Man of La Mancha,” the “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” of musicals, can be read as a bridge between the countercultural tumult of the 1960s and the naval-gazing tendencies that characterized the “Me” generation of the 1970s. It’s also easy to see why its pliant message about the power of the imagination to uplift and transform resonates with artists—or anyone willing to fight for the right to self-expression and, crucially, prepared to risk rejection, ruination and despair in pursuit of their personal vision.

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