Conventional wisdom says there’s one surefire sign that a musical has a fire score:

If you walk out of the theater humming the songs.

And Dead as a Dodo provides a possible course of action to achieve this aim; this new puppet-musical literally replays one of its songs for the audience to hum while exiting, the sort of nudge to stream a score’s standout that could be a helpful step in turning a showtune into a smash.

This idea comes from the world of movie musicals, which love to repeat a (hopefully) hit single over the closing credits, the most recent example being “Beyond” in Moana 2.

But Dead as a Dodo’s decision to accompany the audience’s stroll out of the Baruch Performing Arts Center with a recording of one of its bangers made me realize this tradition’s infrequency in live musicals. Usually, theatergoers walk up the aisles to the sounds of an afterture, instrumental melodies courtesy of the orchestra.

But if the a goal is to transform a track into a standard, then redropping the needle on a bop as soon as a show ends can hot-wire the streaming-fueled pipeline from earworm to classic.