A Study Guide for Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim 's "West Side Story"
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A Study Guide for Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim 's "West Side Story" - Gale
10
West Side Story
Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins
1957
Introduction
West Side Story is a well-known groundbreaking Broadway musical based loosely on William Shakespeare's famous tragedy Romeo and Juliet. The musical is noteworthy for its introduction of the serious themes of youth violence and bigotry into a genre usually noted for its lightheartedness. It also broke new ground through its use of dissonant music and through its extensive use of dance as an integral part of the story.
The original idea for the musical came in 1949 from the choreographer and director Jerome Robbins, who thought of updating the Romeo and Juliet story about the feuding Montagues and Capulets by making it a tale of Jewish-Catholic tensions on New York City's East Side; the original title was going to be East Side Story. Robbins began working with the playwright Arthur Laurents and the composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein, but the original idea failed to work. Several years later, in 1954 or 1955, Bernstein and Laurents had the idea of transforming the story into a conflict between teenage gangs, one Puerto Rican and the other American,
set on the West Side of New York City. They invited Stephen Sondheim to write the lyrics, and the new version, now called West Side Story, opened on Broadway on September 26, 1957, and ran for 732 performances to mixed reviews. In 1958, it began a more successful run in London; meanwhile, a recording of the music from the show, released in 1957, became a hit, with several songs becoming popular, including Tonight,
Maria,
I Feel Pretty,
and Somewhere.
A 1961 film version won ten Academy Awards, including the award for Best Picture.
Although objections have sometimes been raised to the portrayal of Puerto Ricans in the musical and to the use of bigoted language by some of the characters (the language also includes mild profanity and sexual innuendo), and although some have objected to what they see as a glorification of gang violence, West Side Story has long been considered a classic. It returned to Broadway in 1960 and was revived there again in 1964, 1968, 1980, and 2009. It has also been performed around the world by both professional companies and amateur groups.
Author Biography
All four of the collaborators on West Side Story were born into Jewish families, three of them in New York City (Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts), and three of them in 1918: Laurents on July 14, Bernstein on August 25, Robbins on October 11. Sondheim was born on March 22, 1930. The three older collaborators were involved