stems up / stems down
Looking at the Dear Evan Hansen score, I see a lot of this. What's the purpose for splitting beat three's 
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Looking at the Dear Evan Hansen score, I see a lot of this. What's the purpose for splitting beat three's
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Comments
I guess you have a melody (stems up) and a harmony (stems down) which is quite normal and pretty much essential when, as in beat 4, the rhythms differ. I wonder why that wasn't done on beat 2 though.
If you are wondering how to do this in Musescore see https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/voices
beat 3: I guess it is a way of showing that both "voices" should sing the Bb in unison.
beat 4: It would be less clear for the singer of the lower voice to follow, if the first, third and fourth note had stems up and only the second (first F) had a stem down (in voice 2). the other alternative, to have all four sixteenth-notes in voice 1 would make it not obvious that the melody line (top voice) should not sing the second note)
In reply to beat 2: I guess it is a way… by AndreasKågedal
@AndreasKågedal I think you miscounted the beats. Beat 1 is silent. Therefore your comments are a beat too early compared to mine. The Bb unison is on the second half of beat 3.
In reply to @AndreasKågedal think you… by SteveBlower
Indeed I did! I have now corrected this to avoid confusion.
To answer the general question - yes, if there are two independent parts (to be sung by two different singers) and they are both written on the same staff to save space, then absolutely, top voice stems up and bottom voice stems down is the standard. Sometimes you see this consistently through the whole piece to make it more clear who is singing which part. Other times you see it as it is here, with the voices being split in this way only where they have different rhythms.