Given its unusual casting and production demands, "Pacific Overtures" remains one of Stephen Sondheim's least-performed musicals. The show is occasionally staged by opera companies. The cast requires an abundance of gifted male Asian actors who must play male and female parts. Women join the ensemble for only half of the last song; during the finale, after the lyric: “more surprises next,” 20 female actors join the cast and sing the remaining 1:42 of the show. This creates expensive and challenging casting and thus most regional and community theaters, universities and schools are unable to produce it.