West Side Story is currently gracing the stage at the Palace Theatre, where it has played since a revival that debuted at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. on December 15, 2008 transferred on February 23, 2009. The West Side Story tickets for the production have sold throughout 2010 and, by all accounts, will sell in 2011.
The revival is the latest attempt to capture the magic of that original Broadway production in 1957. The 1957 production of West Side Story ran for an incredible 732 performances, went out on a tour of the United States, and then returned to the Winter Garden Theatre for a final 253 performances. This musical proved to be a tour de force highlighting the changing times and the escalating tension of the Civil Rights Era. It is only fitting the production would once again draw rave reviews and millions of theater fans at this time in the 21st century.
Legends Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents conceived this modern take on Romeo and Juliet. As often happens, the project slowly changed its form, beginning as a tale of conflict between an Irish-Catholic family and a Jewish family at Passover entitled East Side Story in 1949. Several projects and shelves later (including one meeting that introduced a young and unknown Stephen Sondheim to Laurents), the story became about juvenile delinquents. Laurents and Bernstein married the story of warring factions and the rise of gangs and changed the direction. East Side Story became West Side Story. Interestingly, the original change had the original title and focused on gang life in Los Angeles, but Laurents felt more comfortable writing about Puerto Rican youth in Harlem.
The team of Bernstein (music, Sondheim (lyrics), and Laurents (book) went to work in 1955. By 1956 the creative team had settled on a story and song book fit for a tryout. That tryout came to Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia before debuting in New York at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 26, 1957. The original production sold plenty of West Side Story tickets, earned rave reviews, and picked up a couple Tony Awards. The musical won for Best Choreography (Jerome Robbins) and Best Scenic Designer (Oliver Smith) and was nominated for Best Musical, Best Featured Actress, Best Costume Designer, and Best Conductor.
