How often should I have a song? (and more)

Truthfully, I'm more a connoisseur of opera than of 20th century musical theatre. Even then, I'm not as well versed in the genre as some others (namely people like Lerner and Loewe, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Andrew Lloyd Weber, etc.) Because of this, I have a couple of questions.

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musical collaboration?

Hello, I was thinking, due to the fact that we have no such thread, that there should be such a thread for people looking to collaborate on their musicals.
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I'm looking for a general helper who can help with all parts of it (especially music.) It's called School Musical Modification (we can change the title.), and it's a kind of Ferris Bueller's Day Off type of kids, plus RENT's kind of music.

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Writing for Children

My script this year is a pirate musical for young children. (10 and under.) I'm not sure what length it should be; I'm guessing about 30 minutes?

Is anyone else writing kids scripts?

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Finale

-sneaks in- While I'm not doing a musical, (I'm doing a comic script, actually xD) I just wanted to point out a GREAT music-writing software called Finale. While the best Finale software, just called Finale, costs $600 by itself or $120 if you're upgrading from the next level down, you can get the lowest level, Finale NotePad, here on a free trial and then buy it for only ten bucks.

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Jukebox Musicals...

There's a band called The Gaslight Anthem who I could write a million stories around. However, I don't know if it's cheating to make a musical using their songs as half my script would just contain their lyrics. Is that allowed?

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New to the Scene

I've got an idea for a sort of musical that really focuses on the power of music. The story is that there are people that can use the music medium (with their instruments/voice if they sing) to have extraordinary powers.
In any case I'm very new to writing scripts let alone musicals and I really don't know how to format them. How is it different from a normal play script? Do I put the songs on the script page?

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Tips for tying music into plot?

I won't have much trouble writing the lyrics, and I'll probably work on composition after April, since I'm pretty well-versed in music theory, but I've never written a script before and I'm already not too good with JUST using dialogue. Do you think writing a musical helps this or makes it more complicated, since you're basically covering more bases when writing what kind of emotion you want to be shown, but then again music can be hard to work with.. Do you guys have any tips on how to sort of settle into tying music into your plot?

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Does this count?

My idea is based on Phantom of the Opera with a slightly different set of characters. However, my leading lady doesn't sing at the beginning and it's only once Erik manages to break through Jane's grief with beautiful music that she is able to sing again.
My problem is, there's about 50-50 music and dialogue. Does this mean that I've just got a scene play that happens to have one heck of a lot of music or a 'musical'?

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Triple Threats Anonymous

This is a forum topic for we the insane who not only lyricise and libbretize our musicals, but compose the actual score as well!

When you are responsible for all three tasks, it can be extremely overwhelming at times. Whereas a collaboration could easily brainstorm with all its members, a single Triple Threat has only themself, their imagination, and the occasional empathetic cup of coffee to work with. As such, I think it would be a fantastic idea for us to band together and provide support for each other in place of the colleague most musical authors have to turn to.

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Warming up

Since we're on the topic of music, how many of you are doing some composing to flex your creative muscles? Over Spring Break I plan on composing a short musical, maybe 30 minutes or so, called Capitol Hill, satirizing Washington politics.

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