Preproduction: the period of time during which work is done on a show prior to the first rehearsal.
What comes first, the words or the music? That depends on who's doing the writing.
Although there have been a number of successful shows with books written around existing melodies -- Kismet is perhaps the best example, with music by the 19th Century Russian composer Alexander Borodin, musical adaptation and lyrics by George Forrest and Robert Wright, book by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis (based on a play by Edward Knoblock) -- there have been many more that have failed -- most recently Teddy and Alice, which ran very briefly on Broadway in the '80's, based on music of John Phillip Sousa. And shows written around completed songs have had similar problems. I'm talking about "book musicals" now, shows with a real plot, in which the songs specifically complement the action, not "revues," in which there may be a loose story line but whose raison d'etre is to showcase the songs. Among the successful book musicals written around existing songs is the recent Jelly's Last Jam, based on the life of and with songs by Jelly Roll Morton, and My One and Only, based on the songs of George and Ira Gershwin. And successful reviews span the 20th Century, including countless Follies, Gaeties, and Revues produced early in the century, through Ain't Misbehavin', Black and Blue, and the touring "Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber" (this last successful enough to have spawned a sequel).
The basic kind of troubles you can get yourself into with this kind of adaptation can be seen in a new show that received two productions this year. Two young men, Michael Scheman and David Stern, were so enamored of the work of Stephen Schwartz that they felt a stage celebration of some sort was in order. About four years ago they created a list of songs that they'd like to use and then set about trying to come up some kind of story to hold the songs together. They spoke with Mr. Schwartz about their idea, and eventually he was convinced of the viability of their idea to the point of suggesting additional songs, and agreeing to contribute some new material. The pair was able to raise some money to do a workshop of the show, now called Snapshots, to get an idea of how the material played. (A workshop of a show is more about the rehearsal process than a production. A group of actors is hired to rehearse a piece in order to give the writer(s) and
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