“Tootsie,” based on Larry Gelbart’s screenplay for the 1982 movie, had the smoothest sail. After about three years in which the creative team — David Yazbek (score), Robert Horn (book) and Scott Ellis (director) — reshaped the material for the stage, a reading in early 2017 convinced the lead producer, Scott Sanders, to book a tryout in Chicago last fall.

Why Chicago? Aside from the well-equipped, Broadway-size theaters available there, Mr. Sanders said, “what you value most are smart, sophisticated audiences — and critics.” (Unlike many cities, Chicago still has a full-time theater reviewer, Chris Jones, at its largest newspaper, The Tribune.) “The feedback you get from both becomes the really important learning.”

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Easy to say when your reviews include the word “boffo” in the headline. The producers of “Beetlejuice,” based on the 1988 Warner Bros. movie, faced a different outcome.

Operating on much the same schedule as “Tootsie,” the show, with songs by Eddie Perfect, a book by Scott Brown and Anthony King, and direction by Alex Timbers, received some prominent, scathing notices when its tryout opened at the National Theater in Washington last fall.

Reacting to criticism is part of what the old system was good for, at least when it worked. Coming to Broadway with no intermediary stops can mean not having enough time to figure out fixes and test them live.

But Mark Kaufman, the show’s lead producer, pointed out that the opposite can also be a problem. “Sometimes people work too long on shows,” he said. “Once you learn these things, you want to put them right in. We’ve done a lot of work since Washington: new songs, strengthening the relationships. In that sense, the timing actually worked for us. It let us capture the magic.”

Mr. Kaufman is right: A musical can be like dough; work it too much and it tastes like cardboard.

Take the infamous case of “The Conquering Hero.” Over six weeks in late 1960, that show, based on a Preston Sturges film, fell apart like a jalopy as it rattled from New Haven to Washington to Philadelphia. Bob Fosse, the director and choreographer, was squeezed out; the leading lady was fired; lawsuits were threatened. Fosse was eventually awarded six cents in arbitration.