Finally starting HSM in a couple of weeks... this is my first musical directing experience, too.

So..  I was wondering...  what comes first? 

Ok, thats vague.LOL.  Im not that ill-advised.

I mean, does anybody have any suggestions for scheduling the 8 weeks?   Do you start with blocking and music, and save choreography till the end?   Of work on everything at the same time?

I had planned to do blocking for the first "week" and then start heavily on the music, without any blocking/choreography yet, and then put everything together the last 4 weeks. 

Just curious what kind of schedule works out best for people with musicals.

I agree with Linda S. - as long as you allow enough time for everything you will be fine. I do everything all at once. Once we have a read-through, my schedule always starts in with all aspects. I rehearse in order as well - I find that this helps the actors. As we go along I have a 'solidifying' rehearsal once a week where we go back over what we did during the week and put it all together. Sometimes scheduling can be a headache, but it seems to always work out. If you can rehearse in a space where you can run blocking, music and choreography rehearsals all at once it works well. I find that I can also keep in close contact with the musical director and the choreographer this way. It really is a matter of preference. Try what you think will work best for you, and then next time around change what you didn't like! Have fun!