Song & Dance opened at London’s Palace Theatre on March 26, 1982, after Variations, a musical piece composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber for his brother Julian, was combined with Tell Me on a Sunday, written with Don Black. The album Variations had been released in 1978. Based on Paganini’s “Caprice in A minor,” the recording featured Julian and a number of the rock world’s leading musicians. Variations, the “Dance” part of the show, was choreographed by Anthony van Laast, and had an electric team of dancers led by Wayne Sleep. Song & Dance ran for 781 performances in the West End. The Broadway transfer, reconceived by Richard Maltby Jr., opened in September 1985 at the Royale (now the Bernard B. Jacobs) Theatre and garnered eight Tony nominations, including Best Musical and Best Score. Bernadette Peters took home her first Tony Award for her work in the show, which ran for 474 performances. Song & Dance was subsequently presented in Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Norway and Holland. 1987 saw the worldwide release of a new orchestral version of Variations, together with an orchestral tone poem called “Aurora,” written by the Lloyd Webber brothers’ father, William Lloyd Webber.
