Year 7, Day 113

 Good Morning! Today's song is Tonight from West Side Story.

And to end out our musical week we have West Side Story. This one is an actual musical with the book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, and lyrics by Stephen Soundheim. In 1947, Jerome Robbins asked Bernstein and Laurents to collaborate on an adaption of Romeo and Juliet, as told through an Irish Catholic and Jewish family conflict in Manhattan called East Side Story. But after they made it they realized it was basically the same as other plays and shelved the idea. As they continued the careers over they years, they continually talked about returning to the project, only succeeding when Bernstein and Laurents were blacklisted in the industry for alleged communist activities. They changed the title to West Side Story, and Bernstein decided to focus solely on the music, inviting Betty Comden and Adolph Green to do lyrics, but they were otherwise engaged. So they invited Soundheim, who they'd met before, to do it. He resisted at first, but eventually accepted. Laurents reworked the book, changing the families to be Polish/Irish and Puerto Rican. They continued making adjustments, pulling it away from a scene by scene adaption of Romeo & Juliet, and switching material between West Side Story and Bernstein's other work Candide. The show was almost complete by 1956, but the team had other obligations to deal with before finally West Side Story, after many issues finding the right people to help, opened on Broadway in 1957. After a positive run it opened on West End in 1958, then did a US tour in 1959. Since then it has had revivals on Broadway in 1960, 1964, 1980, 2009, and 2020, then West End revivals in 1974, 1984, and 1998, as well as more US tours in 1985, 1995, and 2010. It has also has movie adaptions made, which is where this clip is from, in 1961 and another set to be done this year. The original Broadway show was nominated for six Tony Awards, winning one for scenic design and one for choreography, which was unsurprising as the show had more choreography than any other musical at the time. The film adaption saw them nominated for eleven Academy Awards, winning ten of them, which shows how popular West Side Story has become, despite its struggles at the beginning. So check it out, and I hope you enjoy. 

Peace.