West Side Story is a play that has stood test of time. The musical is based on the story West Side Story by Arthur Laurents. Laurents wrote the book as a loose retelling of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The story was included in a book that contained more of Laurents works. The year in which the book of works was released is unknown. The original production was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins. The production is based on a conception by Robbins. It was composed by Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Before West Side Story became the production it is, it was originally going to be called East Side Story. East Side Story was about an interreligious Christian/Jewish relationship between two young lovers. After …show more content…
I believe the director's concept for the play was to recreate the classis play about the modern version of Romeo and Juliet while subliminally shed light on similarities in today's society. The director stayed true to the original script and did not stray from it very much. The only notable different is in Jim Helsinger's production is that Doc has a diner. In the original play Doc has a drugstore. The audience understood and recognized the goal of the production. The production offered a discussion in diversity afterwards. Helsinger, as director, casted the production. Many of the performers Helsinger casted were in their debut season at the theater, but they all had extensive backgrounds in theater. Some of the performers, such as Drew Foster (Riff), Karli Dinardo (Anita), Carly Evans (Maria), and Julian Alvarez (Chino) had played their roles before in another theater production. According to the stage pictures, the cast appears to be racially type casted. Jim Helsinger's collaboration with the designers of the other elements of the play was essential for the production's …show more content…
The acting was done very well even from before the play officially started. During West Side Story's run at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater, each play has been dedicated to a victims of the Orlando Pulse Night Club shooting. The performance I attended on September 24, 2016 was dedicated to 37-year-old Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, and 22-year-old Luis S. Vielma. To dedicate the performance actors Daniel Martinez and Trevor Starr, who play Pepe and Baby John respectively, came out to speak to the crowd. They began with Starr speaking in English about instructions to be a good audience member and the backstory of the lives of the victims and afterwards Martinez would translate the information into Spanish. As they continued to talk they became angry and annoyed with one another and saw the crowd interaction as a competition. Unbeknownst to the audience, Martinez and Starr were building up the tension and animosity that is held by rival gangs; the Sharks and the Jets. The buildup of animosity before the play traditionally began and set the tone for the remainder of the
The play West Side Story, by Arthur Laurents, is based upon the play Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare. Despite a few differences, both works, in essence, have the same plot. The source of violence in Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story is the ever-present hatred between families and between gangs, although, because of the "star-cross’d lovers" motif in Romeo and Juliet, the hatred plays a larger role in producing the ending of West Side Story than it does the ending of Romeo and Juliet.
I attended the performance of “The Diary of Anne Frank,” the new adaption by Wendy Kesselman, at the Stage Door Inc Theater in Pasadena at their Friday evening showing. This production is one that I could relate to because I read the novel in high school and while watching this live I remembered details from the novel that was incorporated into this production. The theater was an intimate proscenium stage. There were around 7 straight rows of seating that all faced the stage. The seats were raked so there was no problem seeing. The stage was small but the props and setting was beautifully made.
West Side Story suffered a doubtful early history before it made its first Broadway appearance in 1957. The musical was not appealing to potential investors because it was considered too dark and ugly to be commercially viable; its gritty realism and tragic ending seemed too serious to become mainstream. West Side Story dealt with serious subjects—bigotry, race, rape, murder, and death—in a more direct way than Broadway had seen before. Although it did not initially seem possible, West Side Story successfully synthesizes the large tradition of Broadway with the relevancy of Hispanic immigration and juvenile delinquency of the 1950s.
When deciding what element a play should contain, one must look at a large variety of options. These options can alter how the audience depicts the play and change their overall opinions. Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” is a play set around 1895 where the protagonist, Jack Worthing, takes on two identities in order to avoid social obligations. This play’s era affects how the characters are dressed and how their households appear.
Within Shakespeare’s Othello, it conveys moral and subsequent reflection of events in its current society. In Act 4, Scene 2 (Part 1) demonstrates the road to Othello’s downfall and the success of Iago’s revenge. Within this scene, Othello interrogates Emilia for suspicion of Desdemona and Cassio’s affair, in which they have none, and with Othello's confrontation, he questions and insults her of her unfaithfulness and infidelity leaving Desdemona confused about what happened to Othello. Iago, called by Emilia, pretends to offer Desdemona comfort and Emilia raises notions of the possibilities and hypothesising that someone is 'feeding' Othello lies. Iago hastily covers these ideas to avoid exposure of the truth. This strong and indecisive scene twists the ideas of human nature within Othello’s mind and convinced perceptions of Desdemona, fulfilling Iago’s Revenge.
Turn on the news and you’ll see it. News of gun violence, a child being kidnapped, gangs committing crimes. It’s all around us, and there’s no way to escape it. Crimes really haven’t changed, only the faces attached to them have, and a lot of the social issues presented in West Side Story are definitely still relevant to today’s society.
The language used in these two scenes is quite different. In Romeo and Juliet the majority of the scene is of the two lovers confessing their undying love for each other using beautiful language and many metaphors. They also discuss marriage and serious commitments to each other. In Westside Story, this scene is spent singing to each other, which I find, makes it more romantic but has less tension. They also don’t seem as serious about commitment towards each other.
Musical theatre is a type of theatrical performance combining music, dance, acting and spoken dialogue. West Side Story is a classic American musical based on the classic story "Romeo and Juliet". The through-composed score and lyrics are used to portray different characters and their cultures, the rivalry between the Jets and Sharks, and the emotions felt as the story progresses. However, we should inspect how the musical film through its music, its dances, its romantic melodrama, and its exoticism of cultural differences distracts from the racism in it. How does it attract, interpellate, and position ideologically the perceiving spectator — whose social construction of reality and racial differences belong to the U.S.A. — by spatially dividing
The book West Side Story written by Arthur Laurents is set in the mid 1950’s, created as modern version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. West Side Story is a romantic tragedy about two characters that are supposedly completely different and aren’t accepted when they fall in love. The “difference’s” between these characters is centered on the prejudice’s they had against each other. Prejudice is a harsh opinion or feeling formed previously without any knowledge or reason. The Jets and the Sharks used many prejudices against other races, sex, and age. What they didn’t realize is that they have more similarities than differences.
Attending “An Evening of Culture” at the Blue Valley Northwest Theatre was a very enjoyable experience. I was very entertained by the unique and comedic spin placed on the classic tragedy Romeo & Juliet. While watching the performance, I noticed many similarities and differences to the original play. The changes they incorporated changed the story line just enough to create a more amusing perspective.
West Side Story was based on a book by Arthur Laurents, with music by Leonard Bernstein and coreographed by Jerome Robbins. It was based on the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet. The film version won 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture.The film starred Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer,Russ Tamblyn & Rita Moreno.
As mentioned in Piaget’s theory who also stressed the importance of play in developing representational skills, children engage in play, they use their memories to help connect their play to pre-literacy skills such as naming and symbolic thought (Roskos & Christie 2004). Socio-dramatic play promotes speaking and listening skills and in dramatising, children read or hear, which supports reading skills development. (Miller 1998) Vygotsky regarded it as an important play that supports the development of higher mental functions in children. Young children assumes about the knowledge of the written language, which they constantly use in their play and the imaginary worlds. Besides socio-dramatic play, Christie and Johnson (1983) showed that free-play
West Side Story is a modernized version of The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, with differences which add to the original story. The play and the musical compliment each other well, with one showing how love is both a creative and destructive force, and the other on showing how people should live their lives how they want to live them. The West Side Story adaptation of The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet contains many differences from the original play, including Juliet’s strength being portrayed differently, the replacement of family hatred for the hatred of peers, and the easing of the seriousness of their relationship. Works Cited Shakespeare, William. The.
On May 9th, 2014, I had the honor of seeing Shrek the Musical, beautifully performed at Casa Del Prado Theatre, in Balboa Park. It was such a compelling performance that it felt as if the hit movie Shrek was coming to life through the acting, directing, lighting, costumes, and makeup/hair.
West Side Story came out in 1961 as a melodramatic musical that took place in New York. It takes the same theme as Shakespeare's, Romeo and Juliet, in that it is about two lovers whose relationship is not accepted by others because of conflicting backgrounds.