Song and Dance is a musical comprising two acts, one told entirely in "Song" and one entirely in "Dance", tied together by a unifying love story.

The "Song" act is Tell Me on a Sunday, with lyrics by Don Black and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, about a young British woman's romantic misadventures in New York City and Hollywood. The "Dance" act is a ballet choreographed to Variations, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber for his cellist brother Julian, which is based on the A Minor Caprice No. 24 by Paganini.

Background

The Song portion was written specifically for Marti Webb, and presented at the Sydmonton Festival in the summer of 1979. It was subsequently recorded and aired as a one-hour television special by the BBC the following January. The Dance portion was recorded in 1978, and nearly became incorporated into Cats. The opening sequence was utilized as the theme music for London Weekend Television's South Bank Show.

Producer Cameron Mackintosh proposed that the two pieces be combined under the umbrella title Song and Dance to acknowledge the primary aspect of each act, billing the piece as "a concert for the theatre". Craven was followed by Lulu and Liz Robertson.

1985 Broadway

In anticipation of a Broadway run, director and lyricist Richard Maltby Jr. was approached to adapt the first act for an American audience.

The Broadway production received eight Tony Award nominations, with Peters winning the award for Best Actress in a Musical.

The recording of the Broadway production, featuring Peters in the entire first act but none of the music from second act, was recorded in 1985 by RCA Victor.

Synopsis

Song focuses on an English girl who has recently arrived in New York City. Following an argument with her boyfriend, they decide to break up. She writes to her mother in England about what happened, and that she has met a new man, Hollywood producer Sheldon Bloom, with whom she travels to California. She eventually realizes that Sheldon has only been using her as a trophy, and she ends things once and for all.

The woman returns to New York disappointed and meets a younger man who she finds more fulfilling. When he has to leave on a business trip, the woman can't bear to let him go. Her friend later comes over to tell her about the man's infidelity, and she asks him for the truth.

Depressed, the woman walks through the city streets. She meets a married man and reflects on whether their affair is wrong. The married man comes by to confess his love; however, she realizes that she has been using him. In the end she decides that it was not the end of the world to have no one.

Dance explores the story of the younger man, his various relationships and his commitment issues. At the end, the man sees the woman, and they make up, joining both at last in Song and Dance.

Musical numbers

London

  1. "Overture"
  2. "Let Me Finish"
  3. "It's Not the End of the World"
  4. "Letter Home to England"
  5. "Sheldon Bloom"
  6. "Capped Teeth and Caesar Salad"
  7. "You Made Me Think You Were in Love"
  8. "Capped Teeth and Caesar Salad" (Reprise)
  9. "It's Not the End of the World (If He's Younger)"
  10. "Second Letter Home"
  11. "The Last Man in My Life"
  12. "Come Back with the Same Look in Your Eyes"
  13. "Take That Look Off Your Face"
  14. "Tell Me on a Sunday"
  15. "I Love New York"
  16. "Married Man"
  17. "I'm Very You, You're Very Me"
  18. "Let's Talk About You"
  19. "Let Me Finish" (Reprise)
  20. "Nothing Like You've Ever Known"
  21. "Let Me Finish" (Finale)

Broadway

  1. "Overture/Take That Look Off Your Face"
  2. "Let Me Finish"
  3. "So Much to Do in New York"
  4. "First Letter Home"
  5. "English Girls"
  6. "Capped Teeth and Caesar Salad"
  7. "You Made Me Think You Were in Love"
  8. "Capped Teeth and Caesar Salad" (Reprise)
  9. "So Much to Do in New York (II)"
  10. "Second Letter Home"
  11. "Unexpected Song"
  12. "Come Back with the Same Look in Your Eyes"
  13. "Take That Look Off Your Face" (Reprise)
  14. "Tell Me on a Sunday"
  15. "I Love New York/So Much to Do in New York"
  16. "Married Man" (included on Original Broadway Cast recording, not performed on stage)
  17. "Third Letter Home"
  18. "Nothing Like You've Ever Known"
  19. "Finale – Let Me Finish (Reprise)/What Have I Done?/Take That Look Off Your Face (Reprise)"

Cast albums

The London Cast released an album on Polydor Records. (2683087).

1985 Broadway cast (Bernadette Peters) RCA Victor 68264 (Only The Songs segment. The Dance segment was not recorded)

Charts

{|class="wikitable

|-

!scope="col"| Chart (1983)

!Peak<br />position

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|Australia (Kent Music Report)

| style="text-align:center;"| 92

|}

Critical reception

Reviewing the London production, the Financial Times theatre critic Michael Coveney claimed, "It is a long time since I have sat through a more ostentatious, less theatrically coherent evening."

In Frank Rich's review of the Broadway production for The New York Times, he wrote: "Miss Peters is more than talented: As an actress, singer, comedienne and all-around warming presence, she has no peer in the musical theater right now. In her half of Song & Dance, she works so hard you'd think she were pleading for mercy before a firing squad. Yet for all the vocal virtuosity, tempestuous fits and husky-toned charm she brings to her one-woman musical marathon, we never care if her character lives or dies."

John Simon, in The New York Magazine, noted that the unseen men seemed "nebulous and unreal, so too, does the seen woman", and in the Dance half, "things go from bad to worse." However, he wrote that "Miss Peters is an unimpeachable peach of a performer who does so much for the top half of this double bill as to warrant its immediate rechristening 'Song of Bernadette'. She not only sings, acts, and (in the bottom half) dances to perfection, she also, superlatively, 'is' ".

Awards and nominations

Original London production

{| class="wikitable" width="95%"

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! width="5%"| Year

! width="20%"| Award

! width="45%"| Category

! width="20%"| Nominee

! width="10%"| Result

|-

| rowspan="2" align="center"| 1982

| rowspan="2"| Laurence Olivier Award

| colspan="2"| Outstanding Achievement in a Musical

|

|-

| Actress of the Year in a Musical

| Marti Webb

|

|}

Original Broadway production

{| class="wikitable" width="95%"

|-

! width="5%"| Year

! width="20%"| Award Ceremony

! width="45%"| Category

! width="20%"| Nominee

! width="10%"| Result

|-

| rowspan="13" align="center"| 1986

| rowspan="4"| Drama Desk Award

| Outstanding Actress in a Musical

| Bernadette Peters

|

|-

| Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical

| Gregg Burge

|

|-

| Outstanding Choreography

| Peter Martins

|

|-

| Outstanding Music

| Andrew Lloyd Webber

|

|-

| Grammy Award

| colspan="2"| Best Musical Show Album

|

|-

| rowspan="8"| Tony Award