(a series of articles about how new musicals come to pass)
Preproduction: the period of time during which work is done on a show prior to the first rehearsal.
Generally speaking, when a musical goes into rehearsal things will go more swiftly if the musical director, accompanists, and actors have some music to look at and to read from. That's not always the case: I know of at least one composer who hates to see anything written down, claiming that the written note is detrimental to creativity. But, for the most part, even illiterate composers understand that having the bulk of their material written out in a form that the performers-to-be can read, hold in their hands, make marks on, and study, will facilitate the process. I often refer to this type of composer as a hummer, because he or she will hum their tunes for a "musical secretary" or onto tape to give to a musical secretary. There are also composers who can play a musical instrument by ear but cannot read music, or those who struggle to read and write music and find the process too painstakingly slow to handle themselves. These too require an amanuensis to scribe their opuses.
These "transcribers" may be professional music copyists, or they may be another kind of musician — arranger, pianist, what-have-you.
If you've done a musical in school, a well-known show, probably rented from one of the three or four largest rental houses (Samuel French, Tams-Witmark, Music Theatre International, Rodgers and Hammerstein Library), you've probably experienced the "part book," or the small books of music containing only the vocal lines with the lyrics, but missing any accompaniment (except for an occasional cue, if the book was done the old-fashioned way, by caring copyists). I suspect the real reason for the invention of this kind of book (well, actually its use in a theatre situation — the concept of a part book has been around for centuries, originally used in church choirs) was to save money in printing costs by lowering the number of pages needed to be reproduced (adding accompaniment obviously adds to the page count). The part book is actually a rarity in a new show; the closest thing you'll see to it is a lead sheet, which in the creative process may be an early draft of a song. The lead sheet contains the vocal line with lyrics and chord symbols, but no actual written accompaniment. The composer and/or arranger will have met with the musical director to discuss what these chord symbols may imply in the way of accompaniment. The musical director, if he's not the sole accompanist himself, will impart
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