America (West Side Story song) America (West Side Story song) “America” is a song from the musical "West Side Story". Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics and Leonard Bernstein composed the music. In the original stage version, Anita – the most important female character after Maria and the girlfriend of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks – praises America while a fellow Puerto Rican immigrant, Rosalia, supports Puerto Rico. This version of the song deprecates the island and highlights the positive qualities of American life ("I’ll drive a Buick through San Juan/If there’s a road you can drive on"). The irony of this supposedly pro-American number,
Stephen Sondheim of "Into the Woods", including "Rainbows" (which he included in his second book). In February 2012 it was announced that Sondheim would collaborate on a new musical with David Ives, and he had "about 20–30 minutes of the musical completed". The show, tentatively called "All Together Now", was assumed to follow the format of "Merrily We Roll Along". Sondheim described the project as "two people and what goes into their relationship ... We'll write for a couple of months, then have a workshop. It seemed experimental and fresh 20 years ago. I have a feeling it may not be experimental