'Something’s Coming, Something Good' Book Explores the Origins of WEST SIDE STORY

2011 is the 50th anniversary of the film West Side Story. This summer, the stage musical is touring through Buffalo, Boston, Minneapolis, Chicago, Greenville, and Costa Mesa. And now a new book from Misha Berson:

The performance that unfolded at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 26, 1957, was something exciting. Something unforgettable. Something radical. How often had a Broadway musical begun with a finger snap instead of an overture? Or with a nearly wordless prologue of high-kicking street toughs executing pirouettes and grand jetés in jeans and sneakers? Since when was a Broadway tuner based on a tragic saga culminating in the violent death of its two male leads? How often did a show feature sympathetic and substantive Puerto Rican roles? Or consider urban youth violence triggered by bigotry? Or finish its opening-night performance to a response of stark silence, followed moments later by a thunderous, extended ovation?

Never. Until West Side Story.

Something's Coming, Something Good: West Side Story and the American Imagination ($19.99, Applause Theatre & Cinema Books) encompasses the full story of one of the most inventive, influential, and internationally beloved Broadway musicals of all time. From its inception by a brilliant quartet of creators, to its smashing success on film, to its ongoing popularity on stages around the world, to its potent impact on the Great American Musical, this book is the most comprehensive volume on West Side Story yet. Award-winning theatre critic and author Misha Berson takes readers through every phase and angle of West Side Story with chapters on not only the stage musical and film, but also the book, music, dance, Shakespeare influence, juvenile delinquency and bigotry, and pop culture.

Writers, composers, and dancers will be inspired. Fans will be transported. Actors, directors, and designers will gain a deeper understanding of what made this phenomenon root itself into the collective consciousness of not only Broadway, but the world.

Misha Berson (Seattle, WA) is a theatre critic for the Seattle Times and the author of the books Between Worlds: Contemporary Asian-American Plays and The San Francisco Stage. She writes regularly for American Theatre Magazine and other publications. She appears as a commentator on KUOW-FM radio, has taught at the University of Washington and San Francisco State University, and is the former executive director of Theatre Bay Area.

 

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