West Side Stories - The Making of a Classic

WHISTLING

60 years ago,

a show that would change musical theatre forever opened on Broadway.

Set in 1950s New York, at a time of huge ethnic tension,

West Side Story took a timeless tale

to make a profound plea for tolerance.

It became a massive success on stage and screen.

And yet, it nearly didn't get made.

Turned down by every producer in town,

the show was an uphill battle

for the four brilliant and ambitious young men who created it.

But West Side Story touched a nerve,

broke new boundaries,

and became a movie that was a global hit.

Now, for the first time, we will hear the story

of how it was created from the people who were actually there.

With young dancers in New York, we'll explore the brilliance

of West Side Story's choreography.

And, with our singers and orchestra,

Bruno and I will discover the genius of this extraordinary score.

This is the story of how a show that might never have happened

became the best loved musical of all time.

-Are we all ready? Are we all ready for the day ahead?

-Yes!

Go "Ah!".

THEY SING "AHHH"

INSTRUMENTS TUNE UP

It's sort of been a part of my life, West Side Story,

for as long as I can remember.

I'm just trying to think, I know as a kid, as a very small child,

I don't know, five or six, I knew "Maria"...

I knew... I didn't know any of the words,

it was all "Maria! "Maria!"

But I know I always knew it.

# I'll never stop saying

# Maria... #

-We're not at the end, this is the halfway point.

-OK.

For me, it was the movie.

And, from the first sequence, dance movements start to build up.

And you say, "Oh, my God, this is what I want to do.

"This is the world I want to be part of."

What I found extraordinary and compulsive

is the way that dance was woven into the storyline like dialogue.

It is just astonishing.

Dance has always been central to the Broadway musical,

but with its five iconic dance numbers,

West Side Story took choreography in a radical new direction.

The technique behind it,

how, even after 60 years, it is still some of the

best choreography that you have ever seen, and possibly will ever see.

But West Side Story almost didn't happen.

Bruno and I want to find out how this jewel of a show

that nobody wanted finally came together

to create a landmark in musical history.

It all began in 1940s New York.

RADIO STATIC

# New York

# Concrete jungle where dreams... #

# Just made for a girl and boy... #

There's something about only really being in New York

that you get why West Side Story had to happen here.

It's so dense, it's so packed.

Everybody... It's steep, literally one on top of the other.

You know, everything is almost explosive.

It's a kind of crazy place.

There's people singing in the streets.

It's a noisy kind of city and you get that sense...

HORN BEEPS

Here we go, noisy city. Thanks, hi!

You can see why that would create such a tense, nervous musical.

And you get this sense that New York

is a city full of possibilities for some people.

But not for the people in this show.

'Hey everyone, it's Seth Rudetsky for the next hour or so.

-SINGING:

-'Seth speaks...!

'And I've got a lot to say!

'Hey, live on air time!'

APPLAUSE

Hey, it's Seth Rudetsky. On this week's Sirius/XM Seth Speaks,

we're going to focus on West Side Story.

We have a million amazing West Side Story people here.

The little kid in me is freaking out right here,

just standing in the presence of all of you.

I still feel to this day it is just one of the greatest pieces of art

that we've ever created in this country.

The idea behind West Side Story came from Jerome Robbins,

a protege of ballet superstar George Balanchine,

and already one of Broadway's biggest names.

Robbins was fascinated by the method school of acting,

and by how to bring gritty reality into dance.

One day a friend asked him for advice about playing

Shakespeare's Romeo, and a thought came into his mind.

'And then suddenly, the light just went on and I thought,

'my God, what a terrific contemporary play it would be.'

But, to have any chance of turning such a radical idea into reality,

Robbins would need a dream team.

Leonard Bernstein, an acclaimed symphonic composer

and conductor, had already scored a ballet and a musical.

Bernstein also had an instinct for what would work with

a non-classical audience.

'I remember that evening very well.

'I remember it like yesterday.

'The evening at Jerry's apartment, because of the excitement.'

Arthur Laurents was a Hollywood screenwriter

with credits like Hitchcock's crime thriller Rope.

He excelled in holding a mirror up to society,

so Robbins' idea struck a chord.

'He came to me and said, "Let's do a contemporary musical

'"about Romeo and Juliet."

'Jerry's idea was this was to be a Catholic girl, Jewish boy,

'on the Lower East side in New York.'

I want to know more about the divided world

that Bernstein, Robbins and Laurents

were considering as a setting for their Romeo and Juliet.

I have come to meet Vita,

an Italian who grew up here in the late 1940s,

when the area was notorious for these warring gangs.

Hello, Vita.

-Hello.

-How are you, my darling?

-Good, Bruno. How are you doing?

Tell me, how was it at that time?

-There were boundaries.

-Oh, really?

The Italians were here, the Jewish community was down there,

the Puerto Rican community was there.

There was a lot of division,

a lot of lines that you did not cross. Period.

And I met a young man from outside of the neighbourhood,

and we became boyfriend and girlfriend,

and therein started the problem.

Because you, a nice Italian girl, fell in love with...?

A Puerto Rican.

-Oh, oh! I have got to know more about that!

-Yes!

-So you, your family reacted against that?

-Oh, yes.

-Were they supportive?

-Not at all.

-No?

-No. It was terrible.

My father, in a four-room apartment, did not speak to me for six years.

-The show and the film is based on those divisions.

-Yes.

Did you ever manage to see it?

We never got to see the play because we could not afford the tickets.

-We got to see the movie.

-It must have touched you.

-Touched me?

I can tell you the movie theatre,

I can tell you which row we were sitting in, weeping.

-It was our story.

-You were Maria?

-Well, I wish!

-What about that?

But the team's new brainchild would never come to fruition.

The project was soon plagued by its creators' overloaded work schedules

and disagreements between them

about how best to reinvent Romeo and Juliet.

By mid-1949, East Side Story had been mothballed.

But the divisions of 1940s Manhattan were nothing compared to the 1950s.

There had been a dramatic change in the racial make-up

of the population.

# I like to be in America

# OK by me in America!

# Everything's free in America

# For a small fee in America... #

Puerto Ricans, who'd long had the right to live in the US

were arriving in ever increasing numbers.

By 1955, there were over half a million Puerto Ricans

living in New York,

facing discrimination as neighbourhoods changed overnight.

Rita Moreno, who'd later play the Sharks' girl Anita in the movie

of West Side Story, came with her mother in search of a better life.

-Oh, hi!

-Hello, how are you?

-How are you?

-Oh...

Coming to America was an enormous shock because it was freezing cold,

it was February.

And it was not a happy welcome.

People didn't like us very much and my very first, earliest experiences,

were of young people calling me spick,

which is a horrific word.

And I couldn't understand why.

What was I doing that made these young people so angry at me?

# Immigrant goes to America

# Many hellos in America

# Nobody knows in America

# Puerto Rico's in America. #

THEY LAUGH AND CHEER

# Ay, ay, ay

# Oh, oh, oh

# Oh, oh, oh

# Oh, oh, oh

# Whoa! #

Mamacitas!

Ole!

And then some years passed...

Lenny and I were in Hollywood at the same time.

We were sitting with our legs dangling in the pool,

talking about the riots there had been the day before

with Chicano gangs.

And I thought, "That could be Romeo and Juliet."

And the fact it was Chicano, just Lenny adored because he loved

Latin American beat.

So he wanted to do it in Los Angeles.

I said, "I don't know anything about Los Angeles."

But I knew New York.

And we called Jerry.

Well, he would have done it if we said China.

He just wanted to do it. And that's how it began.

Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life.

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows doth with their death

bury their parents' strife.

The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,

And the continuance of their parents' rage...

Which but the children's end, nought could remove

Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage.

The which if you with patient ears attend

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

The warring factions of Shakespeare's tragedy

are rival families, the Montagues and the Capulets.

This radical retelling would pit the Puerto Rican street gang,

the Sharks, against a white gang, the Jets.

The Sharks are our enemies.

They're the invader in our territory.

What the Jets own is land, turf.

And anybody who wants to come and, you know,

step on it, watch out.

# When you're a Jet you're a Jet all the way

# From your first cigarette to your last dying day

# When you're a Jet if the spit hits the fan

# You got brothers around you're a family man

# The Jets are in gear our cylinders are clicking

# The Sharks'll steer clear cos every Puerto Rican's a lousy chicken

# Here come the Jets, yeah

# And we're gonna beat every last buggin' gang

# On the whole buggin' street

# On the whole ever mother lovin' street

# Yeah! #

West Side Story happens to be about intolerance.

It's not in American life, but in life all over the world.

The problem of intolerance and the price one has to pay

for having it in one's culture is...

an enormous one and a tragic one.

West Side Story was unlike anything else on 1950s Broadway,

a place of escapism with feel-good hits like My Fair Lady

and Guys And Dolls.

There was a tremendous animosity to the whole idea,

both musically and every other way.

-Hello!

-Jamie, hello, I'm Suzy.

-Yes!

'I've come to meet Bernstein's daughter, Jamie,

'to find out how her father would translate the dark subject

'of violent street gangs into popular music.'

For my father, the big falling into place was that the music

had an immediate double definition.

So the white street gang, the Jets, all their music was in

this bebop, jazz vocabulary.

# Here come the Jets like a bat outta hell. #

While, the Puerto Rican Sharks gang had all their music...

It fell right into this Latin American vocabulary,

which, of course, is the richest musical vocabulary

you could find.

So my father was immediately galvanised.

# There was a boy... #

Originally my father was going to write the music and the lyrics.

And he just quickly became overwhelmed, it was just

too much work.

So they decided to bring in a lyricist and Arthur Laurents

recommended this kid, Steve Sondheim,

who was in his twenties. He was a kid!

So they brought in the kid.

# One day

# A magic day he passed my way... #

So, I'm going to be meeting Stephen Sondheim.

The great Stephen Sondheim.

I mean, arguably the greatest living proponent of musical theatre.

He's an amazing composer. He's the lyricist on West Side Story.

But also, he's the only guy left of these four greats.

I didn't want to do it,

but my sort of surrogate father and mentor was Oscar Hammerstein.

I went to him for advice on this and he said, "I think you should do it.

"Though, of course, what you want to do is write music.

"Nevertheless, this is a chance to work with real professionals

"like Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents.

"And I think you should do it.

"It'll be a very, very good experience for you."

I said OK and that's how I got the job.

Musically, I learned a lot from Lenny just by listening,

seeing how he approached writing, you know.

It's osmosis, you know?

He never lectured me. He never said, "No, you see what you do..."

There was none of that.

He was very fond of changing my lyrics.

I would write something and he would change them and say,

"Wouldn't this be better?"

-Really?

-Yeah. Then we'd argue. I was 25 years old.

He treated me like a kid.

He treated me very nicely, very well,

but that condescension was always there.

It took a long time before he accepted the fact that I was

my own man.

There are some sketches that exist of preliminary lyrics

that my father wrote.

# Maria

# It's a sound like there's music playing

# It's a sound like in church when they're praying. #

And I thought, "That's just so inelegant."

That is really so inferior to...

# Maria

# Say it loud and there's music playing

# Say it soft and it's almost like praying. #

Now that's a lyric.

But that was Steve.

# Maria... #

I think he was very happy to have a collaborator who was a musician.

I may be flattering myself, but there it is.

# Maria... #

My father hated being alone.

And composing is a very lonely business.

And I think that's one of the reasons

he liked working in musical theatre so much. It was less lonely.

Sure, the moment came - and it was usually at 4am - when you

would have to sit down and write those notes.

But he knew that the next day he'd be back with his buddies,

and that just made it all so much less onerous.

West Side Story was nearing completion.

Veteran Broadway producer Cheryl Crawford had taken on the show.

And casting began in earnest.

-Hello!

-Benvenuto!

'I am meeting Carol Lawrence,

'who auditioned for the part of Maria - West Side Story's Juliet.'

You've got to see if this is right, because I think it's done, Bruno.

-Ahhh!

-OK.

-Perfecto!

Everybody in New York City knew that Jerome Robbins had this

incredible concept that everybody said would never work

and told him, "Forget about it, it'll be an artistic flop.

"You can't have a tragedy." We were taking Shakespeare and morphing it

into modern-day violence, and controversy,

and gangs.

Everything people were against.

For the role of Tony - West Side Story's Romeo -

the producers auditioned dozens of bright, young hopefuls.

Larry Kert had been turned down for three different roles,

until Stephen Sondheim spotted him one day in a commercial.

'8.00 in the morning, I'm singing...

'# This shirt is 43% cotton, 22% wool. #

'You know, one of those silly things you do.

'Stephen Sondheim happened to be there that morning,

'came backstage and said,

' "Boy, I've seen your auditions, how come you don't sing high for us?

' "You've always sang this low stuff."

'I said, "Listen, every day I read in the paper you're looking for

' "a 6ft blonde Polish tenor for Tony. I'm a 5ft 11 Jewish baritone."

'He said, "I'm setting you up an audition for Tony." '

As well as the leads, there were 19 gang members to cast.

-Welcome!

-Grover, nice to meet you. I'm Bruno.

Grover Dale auditioned for the part of Snowboy in the Jets.

That first audition, how did he assess if you were able to do

that stuff during the initial audition period?

You know what we did...

This is what we did.

HE VOCALISES

Oh, jetes!

-That's like ballet. Like a ballet class.

-Yeah, like ballet.

-But he could tell how much elevation we had.

-Exactly.

He could see what our technique was.

And he could see how present we were in the room.

If we were willing to fill up the space or if we were just in

this body, we weren't.

So the eye was absolutely spot-on.

Martin Charnin, how did you get involved with West Side Story?

Jerome Robbins was looking for

the final two authentic juvenile delinquents.

I rolled up my T-shirt, put a pack of Luckies here,

made my hair look like a duck's ass to make sure that it looked

like James Dean or somebody.

Tightest jeans I had which, of course, do not fit me any more.

He said, "Snap your fingers."

-Which I did.

-Signature snapping.

I was the only one who didn't have to wet their fingers.

Why is that? You're naturally oily?

Cos I can naturally snap my fingers.

Wait, that puts you a cut above the rest?

And then what, you got a call-back?

LAUGHTER

The hunt was still on for Tony and Maria.

Their story of young love caught up in a pointless turf war

was at the heart of the show.

So it was essential they had the right chemistry.

In the scene where the lovers are alone together for the first time

Juliet's iconic balcony becomes a New York fire escape.

The setting for one of Bernstein's most memorable songs.

# Tonight, tonight

# It all began tonight

# I saw you and the world went away

# Tonight, tonight

# There's only you tonight

# What you are, what you do, what you say

# Today, all day I had the feeling

# A miracle would happen

# I know now I was right

# For here you are

# And what was just a world

# Is a star

# Tonight. #

The search for the stars was exhausting.

On her 13th audition, Carol Lawrence was paired with Larry Kert.

Jerry Robbins said, "I'm going to have him sing Maria,

"but I want you to hide somewhere on the stage.

"And if he finds you, do the balcony scene."

There was nothing to hide behind.

But on the wall of the theatre was a little grating of iron.

I didn't even know if it would hold me,

but I climbed and knelt down in a foetal position.

He was singing Maria, looking and looking and looking,

and nowhere was I to be found.

Cos I was behind his head.

So finally, he went to the pit and I whispered, "Tony! Tony!"

And he turned and became Spider-Man.

He climbed that wall and we did the entire balcony scene

not knowing if this would even hold us.

# When you dream

# Dream of me

# Tonight. #

At the end of it, he leapt off

and he left.

They stood up and applauded. Jerome Robbins applauded.

'Leonard Bernstein comes down and he says,

' "I don't know what's going to happen but that's the most

' "mesmerising audition I've ever seen." '

And they said, "You've got it."

And that's when I really burst into tears.

I couldn't believe it.

Da-da-da-da-da-da-da!

HE PLAYS BEAT FROM AMERICA

For two of the biggest dance numbers in the show,

Leonard Bernstein was indulging his love of Latin beats.

The song America, the rhythms are a combination of

Mexican huapango and Venezuelan joropo,

which are rhythms in three-quarter time.

That doesn't sound very Puerto Rican to me,

which is what this gang is meant to be, after all.

I think what Bernstein was trying to convey is the universality of

Latin America and how these Puerto Ricans were adapting to this

new life on the mainland.

HE PLAYS BEAT

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Shall we?

Five, six, seven.

One, two, three and four, five.

One, two and four.

And this spreads you out. Push through. And one.

This is a beautiful Jet line there.

This is a stake onto your territory.

This is an image that worked for him.

And you see it throughout the show.

Jet language.

Julio Monge is a Puerto Rican choreographer and director

who was mentored by Jerome Robbins.

He's one of only a small number of people authorised to re-stage

Robbins' work on West Side Story.

It's all about precision. Robbins is very precise.

If you don't do that, it weakens the material.

He was marvellous. He was very tough.

A lot of people immediately ask me, "Was he as mean as they say?"

Yes, he was very rough. But I think it had to do with his focus.

With how much he asked of himself.

And of everybody.

HE HUMS

When I worked with him, he would yell at us, "Stop dancing!"

He was this, "What are you thinking? What is your purpose?

"What is your intention?"

And you had to approach your dance from a different place.

So, everybody, we're going to be looking at America.

Ready? Let's give it a try with the music.

Let's see what that looks like.

HE PLAYS AMERICA

Stay connected. Yeah!

Ha! Ha! Ha!

Nice.

CHEERING

Woo!

In the mid 1950s, Latin music was one of the city's biggest crazes.

Leonard Bernstein and his Chilean wife, Felicia,

were regulars at the Palladium,

where every Wednesday night celebrities rubbed shoulders

with people from the Bronx and Harlem

to dance the mambo. Bernstein transported the mambo beat

from New York clubs to the musical stage,

incorporating it into one of West Side Story's biggest dance scenes.

# Mambo

# Mambo

# Go! #

A party where the rival gangs have a dance-off

and where Tony and Maria meet for the first time.

The key to this is what we call the clave - these two sticks.

This rhythm is in everything. It's in hip-hop.

HE RAPS OVER BEAT

It's in salsa.

HE SINGS IN SPANISH

# Ra-ta-ta ta-ta-ta-ta

# Mambo. #

There's so many references in there.

Leonard Bernstein used to say, "The best composers are magpies,

-"they steal from everybody." OK.

-LAUGHTER

One is nothing, three, four.

And if you add that, Bob, if you give me the basic mambo.

Five, six, seven and...

One...

Back.

One, two, three.

Five, six, seven and...

-One...

-MAMBO BEAT

One...

The one thing about Lenny's music which was so tremendously important

was that there always was a kinetic motor,

which had a need for it to be demonstrated by dance.

And it always was a great, wonderful, exciting trip

to choreograph to Lenny's music.

MAMBO BEAT PLAYS

# Mambo

# Mambo

# Go... #

MUSIC STOPS DANCERS APPLAUD

The thing about my father and his music is that

he was always building bridges between genres.

So when it came to West Side Story,

he was bringing all his symphonic toolkit to the project.

When a composer writes a symphony, there are these building blocks that

a composer will take and use them all the way through the symphony.

The way Beethoven begins his Fifth Symphony with ba-ba-ba-bum!

But then he uses that ba-ba-bum thing all the way through

that first movement. And beyond. And it keeps coming back

and it becomes the backbone of the symphony.

And in West Side Story, that building block is something that you

hear at the very beginning of the show.

It's the first three notes.

Ba-bahhh bum!

And those three notes are the key, they are the code

for the whole West Side Story score.

And those three notes form something that's called a tritone.

A little music lesson.

OK, so what I just realised this year

after listening to West Side Story my entire life

is how much of the show is focused on the tritone.

A tritone is... There's a fourth.

# Here comes the bride

# That is a fourth. #

Or there's a fifth.

# Twinkle, twinkle, little star. #

There's a fourth and a fifth. A tritone is right between that.

HE PLAYS NOTE

Also called the Devil's interval. Just saying.

It's a sharp fourth. So much of the show has this tritone.

For instance, there's...

# Boy, boy

# Crazy boy. #

There's also the reverse. So instead of...

HE PLAYS NOTES ..there's this...

HE PLAYS NOTES # Could be

# It's a tritone. #

There's also Maria itself.

# Maria

# It's a tritone. #

And then I just literally today realised...

# Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke. #

The entire show's all tritones.

The tritone is ambiguous and that makes it a little dangerous.

And you don't know what to expect. It could lead you down a scary path.

So that's pretty ingenious.

Broadway had never seen anything like West Side Story.

With a dark score, a cast of unknowns, fight scenes

and three murders onstage, it seemed a risky proposition.

Just six weeks before rehearsals were due to start,

the producer, Cheryl Crawford, pulled out.

It was very difficult for her because the boys,

as she called them,

she had a hard time dealing with them.

And I think down deep she thought it would be a good show

but it would never be a hit.

And she just put everything in a box, all the papers,

just put it in my lap and said, "Here."

'We stood up and we left.

'We went out and down the street from her office

'by the Algonquin Hotel.

'And we thought, "Well, we better have a drink." '

Arthur and I went to drown our sorrows and figure out what to do.

We walked in and they wouldn't let me in, I didn't have a tie on.

-CHUCKLING:

-Talk about insult to injury, gee whizz.

Our entire lives had just fallen apart and, "We're terribly sorry,

"you can't have a drink because you don't have a tie."

Sondheim got in touch with his old pal Hal Prince, a talented young

producer who would go on to stage some of the most successful

musicals of the 20th century.

Prince saw an opportunity and flew into New York

to meet the team.

This was not something everybody wanted to produce.

When your producer drops you, you think, "Oh, Lord.

"It's never going to happen."

Steve had played the whole score in my apartment. His apartment.

I knew it very well.

And I loved it. He said,

"But please don't tell anyone you've heard any of the material

"because Lenny's very finicky about it.

"He doesn't want anyone to have heard any of it."

I said, "OK."

So I said, "We'll meet at Lenny's apartment."

Lenny started playing very loudly. So the nerves were really there.

HE BASHES KEYS

Lenny can play loud anyway.

Somewhere during the playing of the score,

I suddenly started to hum one of the songs.

Inadvertently. I didn't even realise I was doing it.

And I thought, "Oh, God, what have I just done?"

And Lenny stopped and said, "That's what I've always wanted

"is a musical producer."

By the time I left his apartment,

we had agreed to do it.

MUSIC: America

With Hal Prince onboard, rehearsals started on the 24th June 1957.

Larry Kert's first solo was a song that Sondheim described as

"the expression of an inarticulate, excited young man."

'I've had it.'

At this point in the story, Tony hasn't yet met Maria

but he's disillusioned with gang warfare

and is longing for a better future.

'Jerry Robbins came to me one day and he said,

' "You know, the Tony character's not been established well enough.

' "Go up to the Osborne Hotel,

' "Steve and Lenny have just written you a song."

'And they played me Something's Coming.

'The vamp is da-da-da da-da-da...'

MUSIC: Something's Coming

# Could be!

# Who knows?

# There's something due any day I will know right away

# Soon as it shows. #

'I think about it now because I just well up.

'I mean, three weeks ago I was singing...

' # This shirt is 43%... #

'Now, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim are writing me a song.'

# Something's coming don't know when

# But it's soon

# Catch the moon

# One-handed catch!

# Around the corner

# Or whistling down the river

# Come on, deliver

# To me

# Will it be? Yes, it will

# Maybe just by holding still

# It'll be there!

# Come on, something, come on in, don't be shy

# Meet a guy

# Pull up a chair!

# The air is humming

# And something great is coming!

# Who knows?

# It's only just out of reach

# Down the block, on a beach

# Maybe tonight. #

This was at rehearsal.

At what point of the rehearsals, do you remember?

-This was early.

-Earlier on.

-Yeah.

They all loved each other.

THEY LAUGH

-It was still the honeymoon period.

-Yes.

We sensed that there was something special going on in that room.

# I have a love... #

Larry Kert was an angel.

# That I have

# Right or wrong... #

He was one of the sweetest human beings I will ever know in my life.

Jerry Robbins said, "I want to know without a doubt

"that you are both deeply in love with each other.

"Otherwise, I have three people standing in the wings for

"each of you. To replace you."

And I turned to Larry and I said...

-MOUTHING:

-"I love you."

He said...

-MOUTHING:

-"Me too."

We fell in love that moment.

And I've loved him ever since.

He's no longer with me in the physical sense.

But he's always in my heart.

He was my first real loving, romantic leading man on Broadway.

# Tonight. #

Here they are watching the rehearsal.

They all look a bit apprehensive, don't they?

LAUGHTER

-They're not laughing there.

-No, they're not.

Is it getting a bit darker now?

-You can see the expression...

-The smiles have drifted off.

The smiles have frozen.

And there is kind of a look. Look, look.

You can tell because we've all been in this situation, haven't we?

-Yes.

-Look, look. Look at the faces.

-Yeah.

-What is Jerry?

-Jerry's right here.

'I want to know what it was like

'to be at rehearsals with Jerome Robbins.

'Chita Rivera, who created the role of Anita,

'was one of the cast who got put through her paces.'

Hello. Oh, my God. Broadway royalty.

-Where?

-It's you! It's you! A legend.

-Thank you so much!

-Thank you.

-How are you?

I'm fine, thank you. I'm good, as a matter of fact.

Jerry's cruelty towards members of the cast.

Have you ever been the recipient of that?

Never. I called him Big Daddy.

I saw a little bit of it.

Hey listen, you know, it's a dance. It's not easy to do what we do.

If we didn't have that teacher, that one teacher,

to really scare the heck out of us, where would we be?

We wouldn't have tried it.

No, because it's that moment.

OK, I'm just going to get through this and I'm going to...

And there is the point of... I'm going to show you.

-Absolutely.

-I am going to show you.

Whatever it takes, I'm gonna work at home overnight till next morning.

-All of that makes you who you are.

-And it makes you who you are.

Jerry Robbins was such a perfectionist and everybody

adored, dreaded and feared him.

But that's the way choreographers were.

You know that the choreographer's relationship with a dancer is

one of intimidation, humiliation, degradation,

and to incite them into rebelling.

Jerry had invested us with this whole idea of

it's real, so if you're going to hit somebody, hit him.

If you're going to knock him with an elbow, knock him with your elbow.

I turned downstage and I was supposed to turn upstage

and there is the portal right there. So bam! Right into the portal.

My tooth came out through my lip. The blood is everywhere.

That was a fun show.

By this time, Christophe Cavalera picks up my tooth,

that was on the stage, comes off, gives it to Beverly,

and someone after the show said, "Is it always this realistic?"

LAUGHTER

"The rumble, it was just fantastic!"

No-one was ever not injured in that show.

I also had a rib broken by Nick, who was Bernardo.

-I broke my foot.

-Yeah. You know, pushing.

-I broke my nose.

You broke your nose?

OK, we'll be back with more horrific West Side Story tales...

LAUGHTER

I'm sitting in the darkened theatre with Lenny.

They start playing it and Jerry goes down the aisle

and he stops.

And Jerry says, "I want to circle the clarinet, circle the flute..."

Circle means take out.

"..and reduce the orchestra."

And I thought, "I can't believe it.

"He's changing Lenny's orchestration."

Of course, Jerry had no right to do that.

If the composer wants this and the choreographer wants that,

the composer wins.

I thought, "Oh, my God."

And I turned to see what Lenny's reaction was. And he wasn't there.

It was an empty seat.

And I had an instinct.

I thought, "Where's the nearest bar?"

And sure enough, he was there.

He had four shots of Scotch lined up in front of him.

Lenny just hated confrontation.

And Jerry knew that.

One of the parts of Jerry's genius was he could size you up immediately

when he met you and know what you were most afraid of.

The only way to win the argument

was to be humiliating to Lenny in public.

Lenny would not go down and say, "What the f... are you doing?"

"Darling, the work grinds on, relentlessly,

"and sleep is a rare blessing.

"It's going to be murder from here on in.

"The show, ah yes.

"I am depressed.

"All the aspects of the score I like best get criticised as operatic.

"And there's a concerted move to...

"What's the use?

"I am tired and nervous.

"This is the last show I do."

In public, in front of us,

it was all peaches and cream.

And occasionally something creative, a difference would erupt.

Occasionally.

But they were smart enough to know you don't fight in front your

company of actors. Cos that's only going to say to them

the commander doesn't know what he's doing.

But finally, against all the odds...

After countless auditions, a change of producer, and the pressures

of money and time, the musical that nobody had believed in...

But which its creators had fought so hard to get staged,

was, at last, ready to go.

MUSIC: Tonight

"We open Monday!"

# The Jets are gonna have their day

# Tonight... #

"I tell you, this show may yet be worth the agony."

# Tonight

# We said, "OK, no rumpus

# "No tricks"

# But just in case they jump us

# We're ready to mix... #

"As you can see, I'm excited as hell."

# We're gonna rock it tonight

# We're gonna jazz it up and have us a ball!

# They're gonna get it tonight

# The more they turn it on, the harder they'll fall!

# Well, they began it!

# Well, they began it!

# And we're the ones to stop 'em once and for all... #

On September 26th, 1957, West Side Story finally opened

to a star-studded audience at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway.

# He'll walk in hot and tired

# So what?

# Don't matter if he's tired

# As long as he's hot

# Tonight, tonight

# Won't be just any night... #

There was Marlene Dietrich and Tyrone Power and Cary Grant.

And we could see the first eight rows.

It was devastatingly exhausting on the stage.

And nerve racking. And frightening.

# Stars will stop where they are

# Today, the minutes seem like hours

# The hours go so slowly

# And still the sky is light... #

We all ran to the footlights for the bow.

And the curtain went up, Bruno, and there was not a sound.

And I thought, "It's a flop. They were right."

# Tonight... #

And then, as if Jerry Robbins choreographed it,

they leapt to their feet.

# We'll tear up the town

# Tonight... #

They began screaming, they began applauding,

they began stomping their feet.

And I had never heard anything like that before.

And I began to cry.

# Tonight, tonight... #

And 17 curtain calls later, Leonard Bernstein walked from the wings,

into my arms, and we just sobbed.

# Tonight

# Today, the minutes seem like hours

# The hours... #

We just sobbed.

Because the audience took it to their hearts.

And they said, "Yes, we believe you. And we love you."

# Anita's gonna have her day

# Bernardo's gonna have his way

-# Tonight, this very night

-We're gonna rock it tonight! #

Despite critical and financial success,

West Side Story initially ran for 732 performances on Broadway.

In today's terms, that's not really a hit.

But West Side Story's biggest success was yet to come.

In the spring of 1960, production began on West Side Story the movie.

The show was adapted for the screen

with Jerome Robbins co-directing

alongside veteran director Robert Wise.

The first part of the movie was shot on the very streets where the

story was set - the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Harvey Evans, one of the Jets, remembers dancing on the street.

-Hi, Suzy.

-A pleasure to meet you. How are you?

Most of this was torn down already.

But the streets where we filmed the actual prologue,

they had moved everyone out of,

so no-one lived in these buildings but they were still up.

So Jerry Robbins asked the City if they could rent those streets.

He gave us a ballet bar.

In the street. With people watching.

We'd all be doing our plies and all that,

in our costumes.

SHE HUMS JET SONG

This is called the sailing step

but it means owning the street.

You own the street!

SHE LAUGHS

-Harvey, you still own the street.

-Oh, thank you.

# Street

# Yeah! #

The show was recast with Natalie Wood starring as Maria,

and Rita Moreno taking on the role of Anita.

Over there, we had nothing!

I knew Anita.

I knew it the minute I saw the script and the audition.

I knew who this girl was.

She was me.

# Puerto Rico... #

The first time I ever played a Hispanic girl

who had a sense of self, who had a sense of dignity.

There was nobody like me.

The following year, Rita Moreno became the first

Puerto Rican female ever to win an Academy Award.

'A moment that will be remembered for its spontaneity comes with

'Rock Hudson's announcement of Rita Moreno as Best Supporting Actress.

'The Puerto Rican-born singer-dancer is simply overwhelmed by it all.'

I can't believe it!

LAUGHTER

Good Lord!

I'll leave you with that. LAUGHTER

'Fred Astaire presents the headline Oscar - Best Picture.

'Accepted by producer Robert Wise for West Side Story,

'which garners a total of ten Academy Awards.

'Second to Ben Hur on the all-time list of Oscar winners.'

Maria!

GUNSHOT

The enormous success of West Side Story

meant that its creators' message of tolerance had a global impact.

It still chimes with many former gang members

who saw their own lives reflected on-screen.

The message to me was always "love conquers all."

'Te adoro, Anton.'

You know, there's a Romeo and Juliet aspect to the story.

But there's also a Christ aspect to the story

at the end, when he's being carried out.

And his death creates this reconciliation.

But in the neighbourhood itself, I don't think that could happen.

I don't think people were mature enough.

That sense of belonging, of being blood brothers in a gang,

did that feel true for you?

-Absolutely.

-It still does.

It is. We still meet.

We walk the neighbourhood, we smile, we cry.

And we just reminisce.

I wish that it would not start over again.

In an age of anxiety,

West Side Story is as resonant today as it was in the 1950s.

It's just a really moving story,

that just keeps retelling and retelling itself.

Of people all over the world who aren't able to love who they

want to, aren't able to express themselves,

aren't able to be themselves.

# There's a place for us

# Somewhere... #

Somewhere is about there never being a place

where you can really settle down.

# Peace and quiet and open air

# Wait for us

# Somewhere. #

It's about longing, and wanting that kind of state of bliss

that is not attainable to you.

"There is a place for us somewhere." It's never quite revealed.

You know it's never really going to happen.

It's full of wishes and hopes that are never really going to come true.

And Bernstein puts that instability right into the music.

# Some day

# Somewhere!

# We'll find a new way of living

# We'll find a way of forgiving

# Somewhere... #

We are polarised more than ever.

That's what the show and the movie brings into focus.

The result of that is violence and pain.

While we should do the opposite.

But unfortunately... People should watch West Side Story more often.

It's just very, very simple, universal.

And the music...

It's just a perfect work of art.

# Hold my hand and I'll take you there

# Somehow

# Some day

# Somewhere. #

It means that there is hope.

That it is within all of us

to find that utopia.

And if we can't find it, then to make it.

Was my father a realist or an optimist?

I think he wanted to be an optimist.

But he was worried about the state of the world.

And you can hear this precisely in the finale.

# Somewhere. #

Hmmm.

# Somewhere. #

Hmm.

SONG ENDS

So that's how West Side Story ends.

Is the world getting better?

Is there hope for us to find a better place

to all live together in harmony?

Hmm. Not sure.

All right, you guys are all amazing.

Bravo, West Side Story. Bravo, everybody.

# All the beautiful sounds of the world in a single word

# Maria, Maria, Maria, Maria

# Maria, Maria, Maria!

# I've just met a girl named Maria

# And suddenly that name

# Will never be the same

# To me

# Maria!

# I've just kissed a girl named Maria

# And suddenly I've found

# How wonderful a sound can be!

# Maria!

# Say it loud and there's music playing

# Say it soft and it's almost like praying

# Maria

# I'll never stop saying Maria

# Maria

# Maria

# Maria, Maria

# Maria

# Maria

# Maria

# Say it loud and there's music playing

# Say it soft and it's almost like praying

# Maria

# I'll never stop saying

# Maria. #