West Side Story is one of the most influential musicals of all time. It’s integration of dance and song into the plot was very innovative, because even though it had been done before, it had never been done this well. Jerome Robbins had thought of an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet to a Broadway musical in 1949. He began discussions with librettist Arthur Laurents and composer Leonard Bernstein of a musical called East Side Story, with a plot concentrating on a Catholic girl and a Jewish boy. Other projects forced the work aside for six years, and when they returned to it, times had changed. Their idea became West Side Story, (another early title was Gangway!) and the Montague-Capulet story was translated into gang warfare between white and Puetro Rican teenage gangs, basen on then-current fighting for the turf of Manhattan’s West Side, also known as Hell’s Kitchen.This new translation was important because the tensions of these groups could be well represented by dance numbers. Robbins found the teenager’s natural slouch, violent energy, and herd instinct useful for his choreography. The battle for Manhattan’s West Side gave the dancing more specific motivation, which Robbins capitalized on. The Latin-American rhythms gave Bernstein a good musical base to start from, and the whole score benefited from a jazzy Manhattan feel, which had been inherited from Gershwin, as well as Copland’s romantic Americana feel. Robbins choice of a cast was very meticulously done. He wanted a real feeling that had never been reached before in Musical history. He wanted actors that were not well known, and that would get his theme of reality across to the audience. During rehearsals he actually separated the Jets and the Sharks and didn’t allow them to socialize or even talk to one another. He also didn’t allow the actress playing Anybodys to eat lunch with anyone at all. The show opened on Bro...
