(I think there may have been a slight hiccup in this communication; the arrows should point in the intuitive direction.)
Sorry for the lapse of many months before replying; I never imagined that any notice would be taken of my irrelevant little comment, plus the last few months have been taken taken up with end of academic year, retirement, and relocation of possessions.
My area of research is musical theater orchestration. I try to locate and preserve full scores of musicals (all that is generally published of course is a piano-vocal reduction, though there are now a handful of exceptions). And I study the history of writing for their pit orchestras (e.g. omission of violas or adding extra ones; change from “operetta” woodwind to a section of 5 versatile doublers; handling of drums; piano vs. harp vs. guitar, or 2 or 3 of those, or none, and so on). I’m currently involved, as per my signature here, in creating critical full-score editions of musicals, for ongoing musicological series.
Your project sounds like a good companion to Suskind’s Sounds of Broadway. I would love to hear if any of these orchestral scores become commercially available down the road. I’m even sorry that so many musicals of any vintage are only available as vocal selections rather than including all the music in the show (though I can understand why preventing pirated productions influences this).
And then, finally, if these booklets could just be bound so they will stay open on the piano!
I don’t really think that preventing pirated productions is much of an issue with the classic titles (it may be with some of the long-running current ones). It’s more a matter of the estimated number of purchasers, but there remain puzzlements even among older titles. (The Apple Tree is published complete, but She Loves Me, by the same authors and far better known, isn’t?)
With some musicals (R&H for instance) you can now rent a full score along with the parts, for an extra fee. Of those published for sale, we now have full scores of West Side Story, Candide, much (eventually all, as a complete edition is underway) of Kurt Weill, and particularly Kiss Me, Kate, for which a lovely critical full score with appendices and musicological apparatus appeared a couple of years ago. Message me if you’re interested in discussing this further.