A Year With Frog and Toad

About the show

Act I Frog and Toad are hibernating ("A Year With Frog and Toad"). The birds are ready for spring, as the sleeping friends sing about their friendship and the year ahead ("Spring"). The protagonists awaken, and Toad begins to plant a garden, impatient that his plants grow slowly. He yells at the seeds but then worries that they are afraid to grow ("Seeds"). He sings, dances and plays the tuba to encourage them, which seems to work. The next day, Frog writes a letter to Toad, because Toad is sad that he never receives mail, and gives it to Snail to deliver ("The Letter"). They then go swimming in the pond, but Toad is embarrassed to be seen in his bathing suit, and he tries to slip unseen into the water ("Getta Load of Toad"). The animals, however, come to look at Toad in his suit, and eventually, freezing, he must come out, where everyone sees him in his bathing suit. Turtle proceeds to feed the fish in the pond ("Underwater Ballet"). Later on, Frog has left Toad a note that he has gone to the island on the lake to be alone, after embarrassing Toad in his bathing suit, and Toad worries that Frog is sad. He rides a log out to the island, bringing lunch for the two of them, but he falls off the log into the water. It turns out that Frog is in fact happy and simply wanted time alone to think ("Alone"). The two friends eat wet sandwiches without iced tea. Snail continues on his quest to deliver the letter to Toad. ("The Letter (Reprise)") Later on, at Toad's home, Toad is baking cookies. Frog and Toad, along with the Birds, go kooky eating cookies and wolf down the whole batch that were supposed to be for dessert ("Cookies"). Act II Frog and Toad try to fly a kite with some difficulty, eventually succeeding despite heckling from the birds ("The Kite"). By the end of summer, leaves cover the ground and the Birds fly south for the winter ("A Year With Frog and Toad (Reprise)"). Each of the two friends intends to surprise the other by raking his yard ("He'll Never Know"), but the squirrels soon make a mess of the neat piles of leaves, so neither of the friends discovers the good deed that the other has done. A few days pass as a storm comes, and Frog tells Toad a scary semi-autobiographical story about a young Frog, whose parents Mother Frog and Father Frog leave Young Frog to go find a way out of the woods. The story continues as the young Frog escapes from being eaten by a Large and Terrible Frog ("Shivers"). Now it is winter and the Moles come out to play ("Snow Ballet"). Snail continues to Toad's house to deliver the letter ("The Letter (Reprise)"). Frog and Toad decide to go sledding down a hill that frightens Toad ("Down The Hill"). Frog falls off the sled, which bears Toad on a dangerous and bumpy path. Toad, angry that Frog had supposedly made him sled down the steep hill on purpose, initially declares to dissolve their friendship. Snail finally arrives with the letter that Frog had sent to Toad months earlier. The letter tells how Frog is only happy when his friend Toad is happy. Toad forgives Frog, and Snail is proud to have delivered his first letter ("I'm Coming Out of My Shell"). Frog is late on Christmas Eve, and Toad is worried about all the bad things that might have happened to him ("Toad to the Rescue"). Finally, Frog arrives, delayed by wrapping Toad's present ("Merry Almost Christmas"). Frog and Toad are hibernating again in their respective beds. The Birds sing as spring approaches ("Finale").