Interesting Facts About the Creation of WEST SIDE STORY- Page 1

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 9/23/09 at 3:14pm

The following items are quoted from the 1994 biography of Leonard Bernstein by Humphery Burton which devotes a chapter to the making of WEST SIDE STORY:

The original producer of the WSS project, Cheryl Crawford, quit claiming, " I don't know how many people begged me not to waste my time on something that could not possibly succeed...a show full of hatefulness and ugliness." Sondheim enlisted the support of his producer friend Harold Prince to whom he had played much of the Bernstein score, and Prince, along with Robert Griffith and Roger Stevens ended up producing WSS.

During the hectic early 1957 summer of the collaboration, Jerome Robbins wanted Herbert Ross to do the choreography so that he could concentrate on directing. "Prince threatened to pull out unless Robbins agreed to be in charge of the dancing. Robbins relented, on condition that he could have 8 weeks rehearsal instead of the customery 4. Even so, Robbins entrusted some of the dance numbers to the choreographer Peter Gennaro."

Originally, The Prologue was a big chorus for the rival gangs with, as Bernstein put it, "millions of lyrics to insanely fast music." "Eventually the lyrics were dropped in favor of pure dance; the only sounds the chorus produces in the opening 5 minutes are a whistle and the rhythmical click of fingers snapping."

"Bernstein had originally intended his song 'Somewhere' to serve (with a different lyric) as the love music for the balcony scene between Tony and Maria played on a tenement fire escape. The song found its ideal position in the second act as the introduction to the dream ballet."

Bernstein was also working on CANDIDE at the same time he was working on WSS. "Tony and Maria's duet, 'One Hand, One Heart', was originally intended for Candide and Cunegonde." The music for "Gee, Oficer Krupke" was taken from the Venice scene in CANDIDE.

Back in 1957, under local 802's union rules, certain orchestra players came with the theatre--they were officially known as house men. Bernstein was unhappy with some of the string players and decided to do away with them, although realizing that they would have to be paid anyway. This decision made more room in the pit for the elaborate percussion section Bernstein needed "for a score that was heavy with jazz and with Latin-American rhythms."

Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein had worked together before: in ON THE TOWN and in two ballets, FANCY FREE and FACSIMILE. Bernstein, despite having a monumental ego, deferred to Robbins at times. Robbins had said at an early cast meeting, "I know I'm difficult. I know I'm going to hurt your feelings. But that's the way I am." "Bernstein remained in awe of him. When there was the threat of confrontation about music to be cut or an orchestration to be changed, Bernstein would back down. 'I hate scenes' he confided to Sid Ramin, one of the two orchestrators." Bernstein and Ramin had grown up together in a Boston suburb.

The biography of Leonard Bernstein makes for wonderful, fast reading and I recommend it to lovers of the theatre and classical music. Bernstein was a musical genius.

[Pgenre]

Posted: 9/23/09 at 3:20pm

Didn't Arthur Laurents write the music for WSS?



P

[willrogers2008]

Posted: 9/23/09 at 3:24pm

Thank you for posting these very interesting facts.

[Craig]

Posted: 9/23/09 at 3:31pm

Interesting. I love the stories surrounding the genesis of WSS which apparently was originally about religious conflict (Jewish vs Christian)families until one of the creatives (forget who now if it was Bernstein, Sondheim or Laurents) who was reading an article about gang violence in LA - and the rest, as they say, is history.

Updated On: 9/23/09 at 03:31 PM

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 9/23/09 at 3:38pm

Chita Rivera first revealed in her one-woman show A DANCER'S LIFE that the Shark dances ("The Mambo" and "America") were choreographed by Peter Gennaro and not Jerome Robbins'.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/23/09 at 3:42pm

Gennaro also created the Shark moves in the Prologue.

The Humphrey Burton is the more serious but the Joan Peyser bio "gets" Lenny better. It's very controversial, because it goes into a lot more details about his complicated sexual identity. They work together well as a 2-book immersion into Bernstein, the artist and the man.

[Pgenre]

Posted: 9/23/09 at 3:59pm

I wish the Peyser went FURTHER.

I'm shocked that after all these years a Kevin Kelley ONE SINGULAR SENSATION type smear job hasn't come out. It doesn't even need to be that... but I think we are ready to know who Bernstein REALLY was and not who he PRESENTED himself as being, which both books seem to bolster more.

You can't tell me that during the whole 1600 Penn Ave. episode Lerner was the only one on illicit drugs. It was 1976 for chrissakes!

P

[Scripps2]

Posted: 9/23/09 at 4:05pm

I attended an event last year with Nina Bernstein and Humphrey Burton.

Burton tried to belittle my question about 1600 Penn. Ave. with the comment:

"I devoted a paragraph to that in my book."

As though a paragraph was enough.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 9/23/09 at 5:32pm

"Gennaro also created the shark moves in the prologue."

And yet we always see that iconic pic of Robbins showing the Sharks that famous move during the making of the movie.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 9/23/09 at 5:59pm

[Marquise]

Posted: 9/23/09 at 6:11pm

The guy on the right is holding his nose...did Jerry just pass gas?

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 9/23/09 at 6:17pm

He ain't holding his nose... he's picking it!

[Marquise]

Posted: 9/23/09 at 7:00pm

Ewww..digging for gold. Gus should know better than that! I wonder if Goldie was aware of that nasty little habit!

Posted: 9/24/09 at 5:35am

Chita Rivera first revealed in her one-woman show A DANCER'S LIFE that the Shark dances ("The Mambo" and "America") were choreographed by Peter Gennaro and not Jerome Robbins'. "

Was this not common knowledge? it's detailed in all the books on Jerome Robbins (3) I have--which all predate her show.

I should pick up that bio--I only have Meryl Seacrets's but I think it's pretty good.l

[Marquise]

Posted: 9/24/09 at 6:44am

You are correct Eric it's common knowledge for us theater folks who read and keep ourselves informed.

Posted: 9/24/09 at 7:24am

I have to admit Iw as surprised that such a classic number as America wasn't fully Robbins work (though perfectionist he was I have no doubt he did some finishing on the piece). But this actually was fairly common wasn't it? I know Bob Avian did a some of the actual dances for Michael Bennett in shows he was credited as assistant for (didn't he do, with Graciela Daniele, Follies' Bolero D'Amour?). Of course much of Dreamgirls dancing was done by Michael Peters (pre all his Michael Jackson stuff) and people often forget that as well even though he got more credit. (Seesaw's biggest production number was the work of Tommy Tune too)

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/24/09 at 8:02am

Once Peter Gennaro created the Shark steps, they belonged to Robbins. That was stipulated in the contract that Robbins made Gennaro sign. Here's the wording of the Robbins/Gennaro agreement (from the Deborah Jowitt biography):

I shall have the right freely and without compensation to you to copyright in my name in the initial and renewal terms, use or corporation that I may in my sole discretion select, your said choreographic material and conceptions created or suggested by you as fully as if your said choreographic material and conceptions had been originally created or suggested by me.

Peter signed it. And went to his grave without discussing it, although everyone connected with the production (and subsequent revivals) knew it.

The biographies quoted various people saying they witnessed Peter creating the moves, but when Chita said it out loud on a stage and then performed the choreography itself, justice was finally done.

Posted: 9/24/09 at 8:42am

I just finished reading that bio cover to cover and was going to quote the same contract. Gennaro did get credit in the program, vaguely, of course, but I doubt many realized what key numbers he worked on so heavily. It's funny, he's still best known, when he is at all, it seems as a Bob Fosse dancer for co creating Steam Heat and the Mambo in Bells are Ringing.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/24/09 at 10:11am

Peter did some work with Judy Garland. Here he is dancing while she sings "Come Rain or Come Shine" on her first TV special in 1956.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjC2hpSnLA8

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 9/24/09 at 10:25am

Now after all this time the Martin Charnin/Peter Gennaro connection finally clicked as Charnin was in the original company of WSS and Gennaro did the choreography for the Broadway production of Annie.

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 9/24/09 at 10:45am

I went through a lot of these books writing a thesis about the score of WSS. For insight into the show, I found the Burton book a little more useful than the Peyser book, but my favorite book strictly about Bernstein is Peter Gradenwitz's "Leonard Bernstein: The Infinite Variety of a Musician." That goes more into the work and what-not, and there was a great section about operatic elements of WSS, which was perfect considering the thesis was for an opera class. (The two other books which gave the most insight I thought into WSS was Joseph P. Swain's "The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey," though that book is filled with music theory that even gave me a headache, and Scott Miller's "From Assassins to West Side Story: A Director's Guide To Musical Theatre," which is an easier read).

In terms of the making of WSS, I have a book whose author I can't remember, haven't read it in a while, but found a book called "The Making of West Side Story" which is filled with all those facts and more. I know this book tells the story of Bernstein storming out of a party in his honor when he first heard the movie orchestrations, which I love. I'm pretty sure it also goes into some of the more painful moments for at least Lawrence and Kert, dealing with Robbins. Highly recommend it.

There's also a collection of a bunch of letters Bernstein wrote to his wife while in DC during WSS that I think is at least in one or two books, but I'm pretty sure I first read it online. I know he talks about writing "Something's Coming" and just the stress of it all.

I love the story about the orchestra -- he hated the 2 viola players that he had to pay so I think at first he said he was just gonna pay them and not have them play, but I think the final decision was to give them just a really easy part, which may or may not have subsequently been taken out of the score. But I'm pretty sure, not positive, that violas don't have such an important role in WSS partially due to that.

Maybe soon I'll whip out my making of WSS story book and add some of it here.

Oh, and I'm like...85% sure it was Robbins who read about the Puerto Rican gangs and had the idea to change WSS...or he took credit from some anonymous person who did

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/24/09 at 11:12am

"Who had the idea first?" is the kind of question that used to turn Arthur, Lenny and Jerry into children, bitches and monsters.

This is how I think it panned out:

(1) Lenny had the idea to change the Jewish/Catholic "East Side Story" idea to the Latin gang warfare that was going on in Los Angeles, based on the articles he was seeing in the LA Times while he and Arthur were working there. But those turf wars were Chicano vs. Chicano.

(2) Arthur had the idea to keep it in NY and make it a white gang vs. a Puerto Rican gang. (So he gets major credit for that.)

(3) Robbins decided that the Latin rhythms (which were very popular in the early 1950s) would make a distinctive dance musical, He also knew that he had to bring in someone experienced with those rhythms to help him with the choreography and signed up Gennaro to provide the hip-swiveling steps.

Part of what is disappointing about the current revival is that, despite its "multlingualism," the Latin American dancing has never looked worse.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 9/24/09 at 11:37am

PalJoey, was Peter Gennaro at all involved in the 1980 revival?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/24/09 at 11:54am

Yes! He and Lee Becker Theodore (the orginal Anybodys) restaged the Shark dances. Robbins would leave the room or just watch.

And on one amazing day that I wrote about in one of the earlier threads, Peter and Lee brought Chita in to help Debbie with the flourishes in America that they couldn't remember.

For hours, they just kept going over and over the number--all four of them dancing Anita's part!--until they remembered everything.

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 9/24/09 at 3:36pm

I'm surprised that Leonard Bernstein walked out of a party because he disliked the orchestrations for the movie version of WSS. His childhood friend Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, who had orchestrated WSS for the theatre (along with some work by Bernstein himself) did the movie orchestrations as well, according to the Humphrey Burton biography.