26/09/2024
West Side Story - the real story. Fairly long read filled fascinating revelations. Huge thanks as ever to The Writers Almanac.
It was on this day (Sept 26) in 1957 that the musical West Side Story opened on Broadway. Ten years earlier, choreographer Jerome Robbins had envisioned a modern retelling of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, set in the streets of New York. The Romeo character would be an Irish Roman Catholic, and Juliet would be a Jewish Holocaust survivor; the Catholic gang would be the Jets, and the Jewish gang the Emeralds. Robbins recruited Arthur Laurents to write the story and Leonard Bernstein to write the music. Laurents wrote a draft of East Side Story, set during the Easter-Passover season, but all three men decided that the basic premise was too similar to other popular stories, so they set it aside.
Years later, in 1955, Laurents and Bernstein were both working in Hollywood, relaxing by a swimming pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The talk turned to current events, including gang violence in Los Angeles between whites and Hispanics. They realized that this tension could be the perfect fit for the musical they had abandoned. The love interests became a Polish-American named Tony and a Puerto Rican named Maria, the Emeralds became the Sharks, and East Side Story became West Side Story.
Robbins, Laurents, and Bernstein ran into problem after problem. Every producer they knew in Manhattan turned them down, convinced that the show was too risky — too depressing, too controversial, and too much opera. They finally signed on a team of producers, only to have them back out just before rehearsals were set to begin. After several potential lyricists fell through, the trio brought in the relatively unknown Stephen Sondheim, who was in his mid-20s. Sondheim managed to convince one of his friends, Hal Prince, to take on the role of producer; but after Prince took over, Robbins announced he wasn't going to choreograph the show after all — he wanted to direct it. They convinced Robbins to stay on as choreographer by giving him the director's role as well, and by letting him have an eight-week dance rehearsal instead of the normal four weeks.
Then they had a tough time trying to find actors. Unlike most musicals, which typically had separate choruses, West Side Story demanded leads who were excellent at singing, acting, and dancing—plus they had to look like teenagers. One of the actors who auditioned but wasn't accepted was Warren Beatty; the casting notes about him said: "Good voice — can’t open his jaw— charming as hell — clean cut." The actors who finally made the cut were young and talented, but mostly unknown. Robbins pushed his cast to try and make the conflict seem more real. He kept the Jets and the Sharks segregated offstage, and he posted articles about gang violence on the wall with messages like "This is your life!" written across the top. Columbia Records refused to record the cast album — they thought it was too dark and edgy. When they finally relented and recorded it, it was a huge seller.
With such well-known people collaborating to make West Side Story, there were tensions over who would receive certain billing. In the pre-Broadway run, Bernstein and Sondheim were listed as co-lyricists, and none of the reviews mentioned Sondheim since Bernstein was much more famous. Bernstein generously removed his name, which Sondheim wasn't sure he liked because he didn't like all of Bernstein's lyrics. Robbins insisted on a prominent credit that the show was "conceived by" him, and the other three were so mad that they were barely speaking to Robbins on opening night.
During the weeks leading up to the opening of West Side Story, the news was full of stories of gang violence and racial confrontations. At the end of August, Strom Thurmond filibustered for more than 24 hours to try and prevent the passage of the Voting Rights Act. The day before the show's opening, federal troops forcibly integrated Little Rock High School.
In general, critics responded favorably to West Side Story, but all the major Tony Awards went instead to The Music Man, a bubbly, nostalgic musical about a small town in Iowa.
You’re welcome!
