I saw "The Last Ship" this weekend in NYC. Sting wrote the music and the lead character is semi-biographical.
Symmetrical verse/chorus, 32 bar song structures just plain don't work onstage.
I watched an entire evening of actors (and great ones at that) trying their damndest to fill the space between vocal phrases. Great spaces for utility players but not characters trying to propel a narrative. Reduces actors to chewing scenery.
Very Rogers and Hammerstein 50 years too late.
Sting, please listen to some Sondheim before you write a musical so you know the onstage situation drives music, not the other way around.
That being said, the songs were beautiful, sometimes very effective and the arrangements were the best of its genre.