<P> Jonathan Larson focused on composing Rent in the early 1990s , waiting tables at the Moondance Diner to support himself . Over the course of years , Larson wrote hundreds of songs and made many drastic changes to the show , which in its final incarnation contained 42 songs . In the fall of 1992 , Larson approached James Nicola , artistic director of New York Theatre Workshop , with a tape and copy of Rent 's script . When Rent had its first staged reading at New York Theatre Workshop in March 1993 , it became evident that , despite its very promising material and moving musical numbers , many structural problems needed to be addressed , including its cumbersome length and overly complex plot . </P>
what is the written dialogue portion of a musical called
script