West Side Story

This production is full length, meaning, one production with intermissions, similar to a book with chapters.

Book by Author Laurents (Librettist) was for more than half a century one of America’s most distinguished figures in the arts. He moved in the theater between writing to directing, while also scoring great successes as a Hollywood screenwriter. Laurents began his career writing for radio, prior to the production of his first Broadway play, Home of the Brave (1945). Other plays included A Clearing in the Woods (1957) and Invitation to a March (1960).

Laurents’s association with composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim includes, in addition to West Side Story, the musicals Gypsy (book), Anyone Can Whistle (direction, book), and Do I Hear a Waltz? (book). He also directed several other Broadway musicals, including I Can Get It for You Wholesale in 1962, La Cage aux Folles in 1983 (for which he won a Tony Award), the 2008 revival of Gypsy, and the 2009 bilingual revival of West Side Story. Among his screenwriting credits are Rope (for Alfred Hitchcock), Anastasia, Bonjour Tristesse, The Way We Were, and The Turning Point. He wrote two memoirs, Original Story by Arthur Laurents and The Rest of the Story. He died in 2011.

Jerome Robbins (Original Director and Choreographer) began his career as a dancer, winning particular praise as a soloist at Ballet Theatre (later known as American Ballet Theatre). Once he ended his performing career, he achieved world renown as a choreographer of ballets, as well as for directing and choreographing in theater, movies, and television.

His Broadway shows included On the Town, Billion Dollar Baby, High Button Shoes, West Side Story, The King and I, Gypsy, Peter Pan, Miss Liberty, Call Me Madam, and Fiddler on the Roof. His last Broadway production, Jerome Robbins’ Broadway (1989), won six Tony Awards, including best musical and best director. Among Robbins’s more than 60 ballets are Fancy Free, Afternoon of a Faun, The Concert, Dances At a Gathering, Other Dances, Glass Pieces, and Ives, Songs, which are in the repertories of New York City Ballet and other major companies worldwide. Robbins received two Academy Awards, four Tony Awards, five Donaldson Awards, an Emmy Award, the Screen Directors’ Guild Award, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. He was a 1981 Kennedy Center Honors recipient and was awarded the French Chevalier dans l’Ordre National de la Legion d’Honneur. Robbins died in 1998.

Leonard Bernstein transformed the way Americans and people everywhere hear and appreciate music. Bernstein’s successes as a composer ranged from Broadway (West Side Story, On the Town, Wonderful Town, Candide) to major concert works, such as his three symphonies – subtitled Jeremiah (1944), The Age of Anxiety (1949), and Kaddish (1963) – and Serenade for violin, strings and percussion (1954); Chichester Psalms (1965); Mass: A Theater Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers (1971); Songfest (1977); Concerto for Orchestra: Jubilee Games (1989); and Arias and Barcarolles (1988). Bernstein also composed two operas, Trouble in Tahiti (1952) and A Quiet Place (1983), and three ballets, Fancy Free (1944), Facsimile (1946), and Dybbuk (1975). He received an Oscar nomination for the score of On the Waterfront (1954).

Bernstein conducted the world’s greatest orchestras for almost half a century. He enjoyed special relationships with the New York Philharmonic (music director, 1958-69, thereafter permanent laureate conductor), the Israel Philharmonic, and the Vienna Philharmonic. Among Bernstein’s many honors were the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Gold Medal, a Kennedy Center Honor, 11 Emmy Awards, a special Tony Award, a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award, and the Japan Arts Association’s Praemium Imperiale. Bernstein died in 1990.

Stehpen Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Anyone Can Whistle, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeny Todd, The Frogs, Pacific Overtures, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Assassins, Passion, and Road Show, as well as lyrics for West Side Story, Gypsy, Do I Hear a Waltz?, and additional lyrics for Candide.

Anthologies of his work as composer and lyricist include Side by Side by Sondheim, Marry Me a Little, You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow, Putting It Together, and Moving On. He composed film scores for Stavisky and Reds, and songs for Dick Tracy (Academy Award). Sondheim has won six Tony Awards for best score for a musical, and eight of his shows have won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Sunday in the Park with George received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1985. Sondheim was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1983. In 1990 he was the first Visiting Professor of Contemporary  Theatre at Oxford University. He has received a Kennedy Center Honor and the Praemium Imperiale, Japan’s highest honor, for a lifetime of artistic achievement.