West Side Story Tickets

West Side Story was a major groundbreaking musical in its time, and it is a wonderful classic that continues to delight and move millions of theatergoers. West Side Story is a musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet that transferred the Montagues and Capulets for rival street gangs, The Sharks and the Jets, and made the forbidden love between Tony and Maria (On the Internet Movie Database, William Shakespeare is listed as an uncredited contributor).

With its incredible music, and complex, dark storyline, West Side Story is a timeless musical that encompasses a beautiful blend of triumph and tragedy, and shows the enduring strength of Shakespearian themes in many different forms.

A Classic Story of Love and War

The rivalries of West Side Story can be interpreted many ways, and some felt a British revival of the play could have been seen as the rivalries between the English and the Irish (in fact, the play was a huge hit in England as well as the States, and the play has performed all over the world).

The first incarnation of West Side Story was directed by theater legend Jerome Robbins who also directed such stage classics as On the Town, Gypsy, The King and I, and Fiddler on the Roof (Robbins also co-directed the movie version of West Side Story with Robert Wise). In its initial run, West Side Story played for almost two years in New York.

A Wonderful Classic of Stage and Screen

West Side Story was written by Arthur Laurents, who also wrote Gypsy, and the music was written by Leonard Bernstein, and Steven Sondheim. The many wonderful songs of West Side Story include “Tonight,” “I Feel Pretty,” America,” “Cool,” “Gee, Officer Krupke,” “Maria,” “Somewhere,” and many more.

West Side Story was absolutely not a typical musical for its time, and its storyline, as well as its music, was a very complicated mix of light and dark that many felt wouldn’t fly. But its plot was timely with the rise of youth gangs, and immigrants flooding into New York.

West Side Story Tickets Awards

West Side Story is a bold new kind of musical theater…extraordinarily exciting…a provocative and artful blend of music, dance and plot – and the music and the dancing are superb.

West Side Story won two Tonys in its initial run, and won a Tony for a 2009 revival. West Side Story was also a major hit when it debuted in the late fifties, and was adapted into a major movie in 1961 with Natalie Wood, Russ Tamblyn, and Rita Moreno. The film version won ten Academy Awards out of eleven nominations, and the soundtrack was one of the biggest selling soundtrack albums of its time.