The world that West Side Story plunged into in the 50’s is still with us today. Gangs still war brutally for a piece of neighborhood turf. Bigotry and racism still trigger murder. Love still struggles to survive in a violent world. In writing Romeo And Juliet, Shakespeare created a timeless tale of love destroyed by senseless hatred in feudal Verona for his Elizabethan audiences. Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim transformed that tale into a monumental, classic work of American musical theatre with a powerful message for audiences around the world.
Juvenile delinquency and gang warfare stimulated Arthur Laurents and Leonard Bernstein, who happened to be in that city at that time, to pursue an idea Jerome Robbins had originally suggested in 1949: the creation of a musical version of Romeo And Juliet. At first they considered writing about the Lower East Side of New York and a feud between Catholics and Jews in the Passover-Easter Period. Finally, they decided to base the story on a gang conflict between Puerto Ricans and Anglos on the West Side of New York.
The polar qualities of West Side Story made a profound impression on critics and audiences alike, who were amazed by a show that was both rough and tender, realistic and haunting, old fashioned but as current as the world we live in.
