I really wanted to sleep till ten but the co-author of the long musical called at nine. Unbelievable. Naturally, I didn't take the call. Last night was fascinating in regards to that whole deal. He, of course, told me he was told the book was a powerhouse and all that needed to happen was about ten minutes of judicious cutting in act one. While ten minutes of cutting is absolutely needed, there are still major problems in act one and they're very easy to identify - in fact, I've been identifying them for the last four months. On this last pass I almost got them fixed but then he couldn't or wouldn't do it. There are several characters who simply have to be cut and their information has to be put in the mouths of characters we actually are interested in. If he can't figure out a way to do that, well, the first act will never play. Those scenes not only feature characters who are not interesting and whom we don't care about, they are passive dramatically as everyone in them are talking about other people. Duh. Exposition 101.
Of course, he had no problem saying the score lacks one powerhouse number that it needs - while some of the score will definitely change, the score is the least of the problems right now.