Opinion: Small musicals punch above their weight

Even before it got to Broadway, people were predicting that “The Band’s Visit” would win the Tony Award for Best Musical. And, indeed it is this year’s front-runner, but it also qualifies as the answer to one of those choose-the-one-that-doesn’t-belong questions. Because unlike its competitors — “Frozen,” “Mean Girls” and “SpongeBob SquarePants” — this small show, about the members of an Egyptian police band who are taken in by locals when they end up in the wrong Israeli town, was adapted from a relatively unknown film and arrived on Broadway without a built-in fan base or ready-to-sell merch.  But in some ways, the…