1. It's Scene 2 and you are already sick of your characters. Sometimes I've made brilliant plots and characters, but after a while, they just start to rag on you. If you get sick of your characters, you can be almost positive that your audience will.
2. You realize that you didn't craft the plot carefully and you don't have enough stuff to happen between the beginning and end. Sometimes filler can fix this, but most of the time you want to AVOID filler, so when you have half a play without filler, you would be better off starting over, do some serious replot structuring, or just dropping it.
3. Whatever was motivating you to write this specific musical stops being an influence.
Regardless, a lot of the time when you scrap a musical, there are lots of beautiful parts that you just can't chuck in the trash. This article goes through each category and what you should and shouldn't keep.
(By the way this is assuming you are starting a new play. I put mine on infinite hiatus, which is different. Infinite hiatus is like "Oh, hey. I like the plot, I just don't like it right now..." I'll explain the difference in some of these categories)
PLOT:
It's really hard to salvage a plot by starting a new musical. In fact, it doesn't really make any sense. I put mine on infinite hiatus, which is different. Infinite hiatus is like "Oh, hey. I like the plot, I just don't like it right now..." Usually this is when you rewrite a plot later on. You can salvage some scenes and situations, but those probably were pretty loosely held by your original plot anyway. There isn't a lot you can do here besides take the same story and try again.
CHARACTERS:
Characters are so easy to salvage it isn't even funny. I had the first female admiral in the British Navy, Oliver Brown (not real) in three of my failed plays. Anything during that time period could conceivably involve her and it usually did. Names are something nice to salvage. I don't know about you, but I don't like to reuse names, so any name that I can use I will. Also some archetypes (Magician, pirate, etc.) can be reused if you had some great ideas for some sideplots involving them.
I know that if I ever scrap The Show Must Not Go On, I'm combing it for lines to use first. "Even gold has standards"? I got shivers up my spine when I wrote that. Maybe because I was sick, but still! Usually dialogue is like plot ("So Theylus, are you glad that you didn’t off yourself?") are contextually stuck in their original work. But you would be well advised to take your most golden lines. But you know what they say about gold...
MUSIC:
Much like dialogue and plot, lyrics are not salvageable. But melody lines totally are. And even some songs are too. I'm definitely including "Pennsylvania, It's The Best State" in one of my shows. The setting will just...have to be in Pennsylvania.
THEME:
You can always salvage your themes. Themes are universal and don't apply to one work alone. I mean, most of the time the subconscious theme is what's going to make you STOP writing a musical, but whatever. Oops. I didn't say that? Think for a minute about whatever work you just scrapped. Were you getting too involved with your own theme? Nod your head yes, because it's probably true. I mean, the above three reasons also happen sometimes, but the theme is the make it or break it. You most likely got too worried over if it presented gender plights or racial acceptance to bother to continue writing what flows in your mind.
As you can see, scrapping a musical isn't the end of the world or the end of your work. Every musical you write, failed or not, helps contribute to your overall writing ability.
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