West Side Story
“We were all novices. We really were. We didn't know a goddamn thing about doing a show.”
Jerome Robbins - Choreographer
Opened on Broadway on September 26, 1957 at the Winter Garden Theater
West Side Story is a musical with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. It was inspired by William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.
The story is set in the Upper West Side neighborhood in New York City in the mid 1950s, a multiracial, blue-collar neighborhood. The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The members of the Sharks, from Puerto Rico, are taunted by the Jets, a white gang. The young protagonist, Tony, a former member of the Jets and best friend of the gang's leader, Riff, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in American musical theatre. Bernstein's score for the musical includes "Jet Song", "Something's Coming", "Maria", "Tonight", "America", "Cool", "One Hand, One Heart", "I Feel Pretty", "Somewhere", "Gee, Officer Krupke" and "A Boy Like That".
The original 1957 Broadway production, conceived, directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins and produced by Robert E. Griffith and Harold Prince, marked Sondheim's Broadway debut. It ran for 732 performances before going on tour. The production was nominated for six Tony Awards including Best Musical in 1958, but the award for Best Musical went to Meredith Willson's The Music Man. Robbins won the Tony Award for his choreography and Oliver Smith won for his scenic designs. The show had an even longer-running London production, a number of revivals and international productions. A 1961 musical film adaptation, directed by Robert Wise and Robbins, starred Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris and Russ Tamblyn. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won ten, including George Chakiris for Supporting Actor, Rita Moreno for Supporting Actress, and Best Picture.
Explore: www.westsidestory.com
Watch: West Side Story in 59 seconds
Watch: “Cool” on the The Ed Sullivan Show
West Side Story "Cool" clip from The Ed Sullivan Show on September 14th, 1958.
How were Latinos represented in the original production of West Side Story?
An Out and Out Plea for Racial Tolerance: West Side Story, Civil Rights, and Immigration Politics
“The Puerto Rican voice of the 1950s was stolen and rewritten for appropriated consumption. Meanwhile, the real issues the community faced as people looking for another shot at life as US citizens coming from a territory were ignored and essentially erased in the eyes of US American mass culture.
The Implications Beyond Casting
So why don’t we talk about this more? Why don’t we get offended when artists and theatre companies produce West Side Story? Albeit, we do care when there is whitewashing in casting, but why has that been our only criticism? I believe it’s because West Side Story offers Latinx people, and all woke theatre people, a superficial and false narrative of representation.”
Essay by Viviana Vargas
When is producing West Side Story racist?
The latest Broadway revival can’t fix the painful way it depicts Puerto Ricans.
“The show’s creators didn’t know, or didn’t seem to care to know, much about their own material. The lyricist Stephen Sondheim at first expressed doubts about his fitness for the project: “I’ve never been that poor and I’ve never even met a Puerto Rican.” The initial concept, an adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” recast with teenage street gangs, didn’t involve Puerto Ricans at all. The artists toyed with a number of ethnic possibilities — Jewish people? Mexicans? — before settling on the version we know now.”
