west side story Flashcards
Reception history of west side story
Tony Awards: Won 2 for Best Scenic Design and
Choreography but lost Best Musical to The Music Man
* Broadway revivals: 1960, 1980, 2009, 2020
* A 91-year-old Arthur Laurents directed the 2009 revival with
some translations in Spanish by Liu-Manuel Miranda who would
later write the music, lyrics, and book for and star in Hamilton
* West End production and revivals: 1958, 1974, 1984,
1998
* Film adaptations: 1961 (nominated for 11 Oscars, won
10), 2021 (nominated for 7 Oscars, won 1)
On February 20, 2020,
Ivo van Hove’s highly-
anticipated revival of
West Side Story
opened. COVID closed
the production
prematurely, and its
short run made it
ineligible for
nomination
West Side Story: An unlikely hit?
jerome robbins
“We could not get anyone to produce West Side
Story. It took us about three years of peddling it
around. No one would even touch it. They didn’t like
the score, they didn’t like the idea, they didn’t like
what it was about, they didn’t like anything about it.
We kept going back to the play saying, ‘That didn’t
work, I wonder why not, what didn’t they like, let’s
take a look at it again.’…I’m glad we didn’t get West
Side Story right right away. Between the time we
thought of it and finally did it, we did a immense
amount of work on it.”
–Jerome Robbins in That Broadway Man by Christine Conrad
Why was West Side Story an
unlikely hit?
Its subject, youth and gangs, risked
looking dated
* Its tone was dark and it lacked humour
(see cycle of violence)
* Its ambitious score (see fun fact)
* It was written by four privileged white
men who, as Sondheim said, “had never
even met a Puerto Rican”
* It exploited a Hispanic musical style,
which was already overused and
stereotyped
Its cast of unknowns offered no stars to help sell tickets
* Producers struggled to attract interest from investors
who claimed it was “too artsy and serious to be
popular”
* Producer Cheryl Crawford abandoned the project before
rehearsals began
* Co-producers Robert Griffith and Harold Prince took over
and had a hard time financing the show. Prince recalls: “Some
of the investors told us that frankly they thought it was too
artsy and serious to be popular but that they would put money
in just so we keep them in mind for next time.”
Fun fact: The score is
so difficult that, when
WSS toured, instead
of picking up a pit
band in each city,
several core members
of the orchestra
would
fly ahead and
rehearse the score
with the new
musicians before the
rest of the company
arrived
Cycle of violence in west side story
- Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks, kills Riff, the
leader of the Jets - Tony, Maria’s boyfriend and a member of the Jets, kills
Bernardo - Chino, a member of the Sharks, kills Tony
- Maria, Tony’s girlfriend and Bernardo’s sister, aims a
gun at Chino but doesn’t shoot, thereby ending the
cycle of violence
So, what happened to west side story
How did West Side Story, a show destined for failure,
end up becoming one of the most successful, beloved,
iconic musicals of the century, paying off its original
investors 640% within the first 15 years?
* How has this work carved itself a place in American
culture, as has almost no other musical?
Wss composer
leonard bernstein
wss lyricist
stephen sondheim
wss book
arthur laurents
wss source
romeo and juliet
wss producer
robert griffith and hardold prince
director and choreo for wss
jerome robbins
wss date
1957
working titles wss
East Side Story and Gangway!
”
Romeo and Juliet
Many of the characters in Romeo and Juliet have a
parallel in WSS (Romeo and Tony, Juliet and Maria, etc.)
* WSS shifted the setting from Renaissance Verona to
contemporary New York City
* The famous balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet changed
to a fire escape
* The ballroom scene in which the romantic pair meet
moved to a dance at a gym
* Whereas, in Romeo and Juliet, both main characters die,
in WSS, only Romeo dies
Jerome Robbins (1918-1998)
Choreographer, director,
producer, dancer
* Mentored by George Abbott
* His work ranged from classical
ballet to contemporary musical
theatre
* Musicals include On the Town,
West Side Story, Gypsy, and
Fiddler on the Roof
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
Harvard-educated composer, conductor,
pianist, and teacher
* First American-born musician to lead a
major symphony orchestra, the New York
Philharmonic
* Ballets, operas, symphonies, choral
works, chamber music, piano pieces, and
musicals, including On the Town,
Wonderful Town, Candide, and West Side
Stor
- maestro was about him
Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021)
Composer and lyricist
* Mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II
* Studied music at Williams College;
after graduating, he studied
composition with Milton Babbitt
* Wrote the music and lyrics for many
musicals, including Company,
Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park
with George, Into the Woods, and
Assassins; also lyrics-only for Gypsy
Arthur Laurents (1917-2011)
book for wss
Playwright, bookwriter,
screenwriter, director
* Studied at Cornell and NYU
* Musicals include West Side Story
and Gypsy
Jerome Robbins’s vision for
West Side Story
i don’t like to theorize about how or if the show changed
future musicals. For me what was important about West
Side Story was in our aspiration. I wanted to find out at
that time how far we, as ‘long-haired artists,’ could go in
bringing our crafts and talents to a musical. Why did we
have to do it separately and elsewhere? Why did
Bernstein have to write an opera, Laurents a play, me a
ballet? Why couldn’t we, in aspiration, try to bring our
deepest talents together to the commercial theater in
this work? That was the true gesture of the show.”
–Robbins
Bernstein as television star
Bernstein appeared in
television programs like
Omnibus and Young People’s
Concerts to educate Americans
about music. His move to TV
coincided with a rise in the use
of TV sets in American
household
In an episode in 1956, Bernstein talked about what
American musical theatre needed to progress:
“We are in a historical position now similar to that of the
popular musical theater in Germany just before Mozart
came along. In 1750, the big attraction was what they
called the Singspiel, which was the Annie Get Your Gun of
its day, star comic and all. This popular form took the
leap to a work of art through the genius of Mozart. After
all, The Magic Flute is a Singspiel; only it’s by Mozart…
We are in the same position; all we need is for our
Mozart to come along. If and when he does…what we’ll
get will be a new form…And this…can happen any
second. It’s almost as though it is our moment in history,
as if there is a historical necessity that gives us such a
wealth of creative talent at this precise time.”
Operatic musicals? Broadway
operas?
In the 1940s and 1950s, the musical
play established itself and created a
favourable environment for ambitious
undertakings, including Oklahoma!,
Carousel, South Pacific, and West Side
Story. Listen to Emile’s “Some
Enchanted Evening” from South Pacific
* Did opera play a role in the
development of mid-century musicals?
Did opera help legitimize musicals?
Which of Broadway’s ambitious
undertakings drew on opera?
American opera
- In the early and mid-20th century, there was a lack of
interest in and support for operas composed by
Americans - On Broadway, operas didn’t sell tickets
- In opera houses, American operas didn’t sell tickets as
audiences expected European imports - In the 1940s, New York’s Metropolitan Opera House (“The
Met”) was criticized for its prejudice against homegrown
operas - What about the Met’s production of Bernard Rogers’ The
Warrior (1947)?
