West Side Story - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Overview

West Side Story is an American musical with a script by Arthur Laurents

Arthur Laurents

Arthur Laurents was an American playwright, stage director and screenwriter.After writing scripts for radio shows after college and then training films for the U.S...

, music by Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...

, and choreographed by Jerome Robbins

Jerome Robbins

Jerome Robbins was an American theater producer, director, and choreographer known primarily for Broadway Theater and Ballet/Dance, but who also occasionally directed films and directed/produced for television. His work has included everything from classical ballet to contemporary musical theater...

. It is an adaptation

Literary adaptation

Literary adaptation is the adapting of a literary source to another genre or medium, such as a film, a stage play, or even ace video game...

of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

's play Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...

.

Set in New York City in the mid-1950s, the musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gang

Gang

A gang is a group of people who, through the organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage, share a common identity. In current usage it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. In early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen...

s of different ethnic backgrounds. The members of the Sharks from Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

are taunted by the Jets, a white working-class group.

Unanswered Questions

What is the form used for the song Tonight in West Side Story?

Who is paris in west side story?

Who is paris in west side story

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Quotations

[singing] I feel pretty, oh so pretty, I feel pretty and witty and gay,And I pity, any girl who isn't me today.I feel charming, oh so charming, it's alarming how charming I feel.And so pretty, that I hardly can believe I'm real.

How many bullets are left, Chino? Enough for you, and you? All of you. You all killed him! And my brother, and Riff. Not with bullets and guns - with hate. Well, I can kill too because now I have hate! How many can I kill, Chino? How many and still have one bullet left for me?

[singing] I just met a girl named Maria, and suddenly that nameWill never be the same to me.Maria - I just kissed a girl named MariaAnd suddenly I found how wonderful a sound can beMaria - say it loud and there's music playingSay it soft and it's almost like praying.

Unlike other musicals ‘West Side Story’ grows younger!

The Screen Achieves One of the Great Entertainments in the History of Motion Pictures

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