West Side Story

West Side Story is a musical written by Arthur Laurents (book), Leonard Bernstein (music) and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics), and originally produced and directed by Jerome Robbins. West Side Story debuted on Broadway in 1957 and played 732 performances before going on tour - a very successful run for the time. In 1961, it was made into a motion picture, directed by Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, winning ten Motion Picture Academy Awards including Best Picture.

The story line is a reworking of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet set among Polish-American and Puerto Rican street gangs in New York City's Upper West Side. Tony and Maria fall in love, despite the fact that they are associated with rival gangs - Tony with the Jets, and Puerto Rican-born Maria with the Sharks.

The dark theme, sophisticated music, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in English language musical theatre, which had previously (with rare exceptions) tended toward light and fluffy themes. West Side Story is still produced frequently by local theatres and is occasionally produced by classical opera companies.

Bernstein's score for the musical has been extremely popular. Some of the songs include "Something's Coming", "Maria", "America", "Tonight", "Gee, Officer Krupke", "I Feel Pretty", "One Hand, One Heart" and "Cool".

The film was #41 on American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Movies and #3 on its 100 Years, 100 Passions, and has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. On AFI's 100 years, 100 songs, "Tonight" was #59, "America" was #35, and "Somewhere" was #20.

Credits

Book by Arthur Laurents
Music by Leonard Bernstein
Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Directed and Choreographed by Jerome Robbins

Dramatis Personae

Academy Award wins and nominations for the movie
Wins (10)

• Academy Award for Best Picture - Robert Wise, producer
• Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor - George Chakiris
• Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress - Rita Moreno
• Academy Award for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color - Victor A. Gangelin, and Boris Leven
• Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Color - Daniel L. Fapp
• Academy Award for Costume Design, Color - Irene Sharaff
• Academy Award for Directing - Jerome Robbins, and Robert Wise
• Best Film Editing - Thomas Stanford
• Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture - Saul Chaplin, Johnny Green, Irwin Kostal, and Sid Ramin
• Best Sound - Fred Hynes (Todd-AO SSD), and Gordon Sawyer (Samuel Goldwyn SSD)

Nominations (1)

• Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium - Ernest Lehman

External links

• http://www.westsidestory.com/
• http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/albm28.html