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 than two dozen Sondheim compositions, each piece newly re-imagined by Marsalis". The concert featured Bernadette Peters, Jeremy Jordan, Norm Lewis, Cyrille Aimée, four dancers and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra conducted by David Loud. In "Playbill", Steven Suskin described the concert as "neither a new musical, a revival, nor a standard songbook revue; it is, rather, a staged-and-sung chamber jazz rendition of a string of songs ... Half of the songs come from "Company" and "Follies"; most of the other Sondheim musicals are represented, including the lesser-known "Passion" and "Road Show"". Sondheim wrote additional songs for the film adaptation