On September 26, 1957, West Side Story opened on Broadway.
At the time, creators and critics could not know how the work would re-envision the possibilities of storytelling in musical theatre. But West Side Story—once named Gangway—marks a turning point in the timeline of theatre. Jerome Robbins’ direction and choreography (and the work of his contractually uncredited co-choreographer Peter Gennaro) upped the ante for the integration of dance as storytelling in musicals. Berstein’s score remains ensconced as a masterpiece. The production marked the Broadway lyrical debut of Stephen Sondheim and the breakout performance by Chita Rivera. The show even led to a West Side Story baby when Rivera and original Jet Tony Mordente married and welcomed their daughter, Lisa.
On the 60th anniversary of its Broadway opening, Playbill asked original producer Harold Prince, lyricist Stephen Sondheim, original stars Chita Rivera and Martin Charnin, and even the descendants of West Side Story stars about their memories and its lasting legacy.
On creating West Side Story.
“Jerome Robbins insisted that The Jets and The Sharks had nothing to do with each other, during the rehearsal process,” says Lisa Mordente, for whom West Side Story is family lore. A method director, Robbins also called in choreographer Peter Gennaro to work on much of The Shark movement while he focused on The Jets.
“In order to create these two very distinct movement vocabularies for these two very distinct gangs [Robbins felt] it would be a good idea to have another person in there creating those dances,” says Gennaro’s daughter Liza, a professor of dance at Indiana University. “It sounds like something Robbins would do because it was smart.”
The iconic “Dance at the Gym” was created entirely separately. “It was exciting and spontaneous,” says Rivera. “It was created in two separate rooms: one with Jerome Robbins, the other with Peter Gennaro. Then one day Jerome Robbins brought us all together and ‘The Dance at the Gym’ was complete.”
“My father would say he was very unencumbered with dance,” says Gennaro. “He would say he just did it. I think that was so opposite to Robbins who was so thoughtful and intellectual in his creation of movement, and slow.”
Also part of her family lore, Gennaro recalls her father talking about staging “America”:
After working on it at the theatre the Shark ladies “came back and showed it to the cast and the cast screamed and yelled and carried on and were so excited by the number. Robbins said to Peter, ‘Why don't you do this,’ and started giving him some notes and my father said ‘With that sort of reaction I think we should leave it alone.’”
Rivera remembers much of the process as similarly organic: “Everything flowed naturally, it had its own process in creating the brilliant masterpiece that West Side Story turned out to be,” she says.
