Pacific Overtures

• Original Broadway Production (1976)
  New York, NY
• West Coast Tour (1976)
• York Theatre Company Production (1984)
  New York, NY
• Off-Broadway Revival (1984)
  New York, NY
• English National Opera Production (1987)
  London, England
• Leicester Haymarket Production (1993)
  Leicester, UK
• New National Theatre of Tokyo Production (U.S. mini-tour) (2002)
  New York, NY
• Donmar Warehouse Revival (2003)
  London, England
• Roundabout Revival (2004)
  New York, NY
• Off-Broadway Revival (2017)
  New York, NY
• Menier Chocolate Factory Production (2023)
  London, England

Click on the title for info on the song.

Original score

• The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Sea
• There Is No Other Way
  • aka Tamate's Dance [no note]
• Four Black Dragons
• Chrysanthemum Tea
• Poems
• Welcome to Kanagawa
• March to the Treaty House
• Someone in a Tree
• Lion Dance
  • aka The Lion Dance of Commodore Perry [Title in program for English National Opera production]
• Please Hello
• A Bowler Hat
• Pretty Lady
• Next

Cut prior to Broadway

• The Advantages of Being Set in the Middle of the Sea
• Prayers
  • aka Prayer [no note]
• Chrysanthemum Tea (pre-Broadway version)
• We Float

• Private Audition [audio]

The story of Commodore Matthew C. Perry's arrival in the "Floating Kingdom" of Nippon in 1853. The show chronicles the influence America had upon Japan, detailing and dramatizing the westernization of Japanese culture.

In his book, Finishing the Hat, Stephen Sondheim writes that the cut song "We Float" was "the song we opened with in Boston, the first of our two tryout towns." This seems to be incorrect. An earlier, longer and more complicated version of "The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Sea" (titled "The Advantages of Being Set in the Middle of the Sea") was performed in early Boston performances. At some point during the tryout, "We Float" replaced it, and then that was replaced by the final version of "The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Sea."