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"A multi-disciplinary, contemporary analysis of one of the most important musicals of the twentieth century. Leading scholars in music, theatre, dance, literature, and performance introduce the history, creation, content, and legacy of West Side Story, and its cultural contexts and challenges, including class, colourism, and race"--
List of contents
List of figures; List of contributors; Introduction; Acknowledgments; Part I. Before 'West Side Story': 1. Performing social relevance in the American Musical before 'West Side Story' William A. Everett; 2. Bernstein on Broadway Helen Smith; 3. In anticipation of 'West Side Story': the confluence of styles, genres, and influences in the early choreography of Jerome Robbins Phoebe Rumsey; 4. Arthur Laurents before 'West Side Story' John M. Clum; 5. Sondheim the kid Steve Swayne; 6. For a small fee in America: producing 'West Side Story' Laura MacDonald; Part II. The Work Itself and Its Context: 7. The score: creation, orchestration, unification, and analysis Paul R. Laird; 8. Un-Gendering 'Somewhere': women's agency and redemption in 'West Side Story' Katherine Baber; 9. Shakespeare in the city: adapting 'Romeo and Juliet' Jane Barnette; 10. 'West Side Story' and the Hispanic problem Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz; 11. 'West Side Story' and the intersections of class, colourism, and racism Erica K. Argyropoulos; 12. The real gang history of New York Elizabeth A. Wells; Part III. The Legacy: 13. 'West Side Story' and the voice Sylvia Stoner-Hawkins; 14. 'West Side Story'/suite: Jerome Robbins's Choreo-Directing on Broadway, Hollywood, and ballet stages Dustyn Martincich; 15. Exoticism, race, and the Broadway musical in the 'City of Waltzes': Marcel Prawy's 1968 'West Side Story' production at the Vienna Volksoper Martin Nedbal; 16. 'West Side Story' abroad as an American icon Emily Abrams Ansari, Anne Searcy, Paul R. Laird, Gonzalo Fernández Monte, Elizabeth Wells, and Aino Kukkonen; Bibliography; Index.
About the author
Paul R. Laird is Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the University of Kansas. As a scholar of musical theatre, he specialises in the careers of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Schwartz. With William A. Everett, he co-edited three editions of The Cambridge Companion to the Musical.Elizabeth A. Wells is Professor of Musicology at Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB, Canada. Her first book on West Side Story was published in 2011 and won the American Musicological Society's Music in American Culture award.
