From your first cigarette
To your last dyin' day.
I had originally intended on paying tribute to West Side Story a weeks ago as part of my Academy Awards posts (HERE:) I didn't have the time then though, to do the research I wanted to do for the piece. My passion for the musical began when I was a kid. I remember going with my older brother to see a High School Production that his then girlfriend was in.
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. West Side Story was conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. The amateur High School production that I saw began an obsession with both the show and it's music. I was only about 9 or 10 at the time and although I didn't initially seek out the movie, I found a copy of the original Broadway soundtrack in our school's library.
Although we weren't allowed to take out music, we could listen to it in one of the library's cubicles. I signed out that soundtrack dozens of times, listening to Larry Kert, (Tony) Carol Lawrence, (Maria), Michael Callan, (Riff) and especially Chita Rivera (Anita) over and over and over again. The original Broadway soundtrack remains my favorite version of the music from the show.
Check out my tribute to West Side Story, including many of the actors who've played Tony, Riff and Bernardo from the 1950's through the 2021 film adaptation on the NEXT PAGE HERE:
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