High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Pacific Overtures is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, a libretto by John Weidman, and additional material by Hugh Wheeler. The musical is set in 1853 Japan and follows the difficult Westernization of Japan, through the lives of two friends caught in the change. The title of the work is ironic, nodding toward "overture" as a musical form, noting that the initiatives of the Western powers for commercial exploitation of the Pacific nation were anything but "pacific" (or peaceable) overtures. Built around a quasi-Japanese pentatonic scale, the music contrasts Japanese contemplation ("There is No Other Way") with Western ingenuousness ("Please Hello," "Pretty Lady").