West Side Story

[sara john]

West Side story is a musical directed by Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephan Sondheim. It released on 13 December 1961(USA, New York) and after this they had 732 performances before going on tour. The idea of this amazing show is close to the Shakespearean model. That means that at the beginning things look good for the lovers, but after that everything collapse. The performance received rave reviews for its intrepid depiction of gang life. When it opened in 1957 on Broadway it received mixed reviews and now the stunning musical turned 52 recently.
This amazing show has the power to enchant the whole audience with its acting, songs and dances. On 31st October West Side Story will be performed at the Stratford Festival in the Festival Theatre.
Before its opening on Broadway it had been touted for the fact that some of the song and dialogs in the production will be performed in Spanish because of its Puerto Rican Character. But on 27th August some journalists for the musical announced that some of these parts have been changed back to English. The director of the revival of the West Side Story theatre and the writer of its book, Arthur Laurents, said that from the beginning the Spanish in the performance was an experiment.
For the upcoming 2009 MTV Video Music Awards on 13th September in New York City Taylor Swift has recorded a new version of “Tonight”, a classic song from the Broadway’s musical. It’s a parody of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s “Tonight” from the movie “West Side Story.” Swift’s idea is to combine the rendition with other performances by Cobra Starship, Katy Perry, Russell Brand and Ne-Yo.
In 1957 the production is nominated for a Tony Award, but the award went to Meredith Willson's The Music Man. Jerome Robbins won Tony Award in 1957 for his choreography. Actually this breath taking production is a winner of ten Oscars, ten Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (George Chakiris), Best Supporting Actress (Rita Moreno), and Best Musical Score (Leonard Bernstein), has another 15 wins and 6 nominations.
Some critics are delighted by the musical: Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune claimed that the production is real theatrical masterpiece, some are in two minds: New York Times called the show “almost perfect performance” and some didn’t like the show: Michael Kuchwara of the Associated Press wrote that the musical seems a little superficial and slow and even with some surprising alteration and its emotional effect is strangely muted.