How do i write a musical scene?

Question

when writing a musical do you have two different books for the score and the actual book (script)? And how do you combine the dialogue with the song? do you do it all in one or separate them?

Answer 1

In can't answer for all the musicals out there, but in my experience with working with musicals, there are usually two books for the actors.  One book is the script - it has all the lines of dialouge and all the stage directions.  It also has the lyrics to the songs when they come up in the script, but it has NO music in it.  The second book has a few lines of dialouge that cue the start of the music, and has the actual music for the songs, as well as the lyrics.  The musical director/pianist can also get another book that is the complete score for the show, but the actors need only the songs with lyrics in them.  Hope this helps.