I think I'd argue that folk music and musical theater are at least cousins to one another; the lyrics of both tend to value the same kind of poetic form, both genres often strike a thematic balance between the timeless and the topical, and both are specifically concerned with storytelling.

Meanwhile: as it happens, my favorite Jerry Herman musical may be one of his least known: a made-for-TV feature titled "Mrs. Claus" starring Angela Lansbury and Charles Durning, in which Lansbury's title character finds herself stranded in New York in the midst of the suffragette movement.