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The 1950's was a time of great tension, both around the world and on the streets of New York. On Broadway, a new musical attempted to capture that tension on stage. WNYC's Sara Fishko reports on how the emotion and politics of the times infected the cast, and the show's creators. Here's the next Fishko files.
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Related Pieces
Piece Description
The 1950's was a time of great tension, both around the world and on the streets of New York. On Broadway, a new musical attempted to capture that tension on stage. WNYC's Sara Fishko reports on how the emotion and politics of the times infected the cast, and the show's creators. Here's the next Fishko files.
Transcript
West Side Story
I was 10 or 11 years old, and I’d been swept off my feet: I'd just seen West Side Story. I practically flew downstairs to talk to a neighbor of ours, a filmmaker who was an old family friend. “Terrible,” he said. “I hated all of it.” I was stunned. The music? “Tacky, sentimental stuff,” he said. Even the dancing? He laughed – “ESPECIALLY the dancing.” I turned this over in my mind for years after. Later I learned that the neighbor I’d talked to that day was one of around 10 people named as Communist by Jerome Robbins, creator and choreographer of West Side Story, and former Communist Party member, in his friendly testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Robbins was a homosexual in the closet, like so many gays at that time -- and some believed he’d been threatened with exposure and had buckled under the pressure. Others thought he was just...
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Musical Works
| Title | Artist | Album | Label | Year | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prologue | Leonard Bernstein | West Side Story. | Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy | 1957 | 03:50 |
| Tonight | Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim/Arthur Laurents | West Side Story. | Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy | 1957 | 03:53 |
| Tonight (Quintet and Chorus) | Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim/Arthur Laurents | West Side Story. | Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy | 1957 | 03:38 |
| "Gee, Officer Krupke" | Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim/Arthur Laurents | West Side Story. | Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy | 1957 | 04:02 |
| Somewhere (Ballet) | Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim/Arthur Laurents | West Side Story. | Sony Classical/Columbia/Legacy | 1957 | 07:33 |
