westsidestory

“Everyone told us that it was an impossible project … And we were told no one was going to be able to sing augmented fourths, as with ‘Ma-ri-a’ … Also, they said the score was too rangy for pop music … Besides, who wanted to see a show in which the first-act curtain comes down on two dead bodies lying on the stage?”


Leonard Bernstein regarding the writing of West Side Story in an interview with Rolling Stone.

( And now to Sondheim )

'West Side Story' goes 'South Park' at ASU
Musical takes new direction while staying true to roots

by Kerry Lengel
The Arizona Republic

"The Book of Mormon" isn't the only big Broadway musical with a "South Park" sensibility. In fact, the scandalous cartoon's influence shows up where you'd least expect it: in a 50-year-old classic, "West Side Story."

The number in question is "Gee, Officer Krupke," in which the street toughs from the Jets, buzzing with adrenaline after the death of gang leader Riff, ridicule the psychologists, sociologists and law-and-order types out to solve America's juvenile-delinquency problem.

It was a scene that the late Arthur Laurents -- who wrote the book to the musical as part of a dream team with composer Leonard Bernstein, lyricist Stephen Sondheim and choreographer Jerome Robbins -- struggled with when he directed the 2009 Broadway revival.
( Read more... )