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Looks like they're taking some of the cues from the movie version after all. The Shark men are involved in "America" which they definitely aren't in the original stage version but were in the 1961 movie. "Cool" AND "Krupke" are both before the Rumble. On stage, "Krupke" is after the Rumble. The...

West Side Story and Steven Spielberg jumped right to the top of Scott Feinberg's Oscar prognostications in The Hollywood Reporter this morning. Rachel Zegler (playing Maria) and Rita Moreno jumped to the top of Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress lists, too. Mike Faist (Riff) jumped into...

Not really much of a mystery about the dubbing of either Dandridge or Belafonte. Carmen Jones requires operatic voices for the arias, and both Dorothy and Harry were pop vocalists. They simply didn't have the vocal range to handle the great demands of the score.

I'd much rather see a remake of Hello, Dolly! than Gypsy. I agree, she was too young, and there was no attraction between her Dolly and Matthau's Horace.

We had a film version and a made-for-TV version, both of which were pretty much faithful to the original source, so I don't see a pressing need for another Gypsy. I know Streisand was hot to do it for years and years but I don't get it. There are plenty of great Broadway shows that have never...

Hardly. Cimarron, It Happened One Night, Mutiny on the Bounty, Grand Hotel and that's just feature films. Made-for-TV movies would account for some others.

I'm sorry, but "Cool" was shot on Stage 4 at Goldwyn and "America" was shot on Stage 5. "America" was shot right before "Cool." This information is found in Richard Barrios' book on the making of West Side Story.

Except that Jerome Robbins also directed "America" and "Cool," both of which are danced on soundstage sets.

Yes, and it is indeed terrible. Almost everyone is miscast, and it is a long slog to endure.

That's not all that rare: The Sound of Music on stage likewise ran far longer in London than in New York, and it ran 3 1/2 years in New York.

While that is very true, the company went on a national tour when it closed on Broadway, and then came back to New York and ran for an additional six months, so I'm thinking it closed originally while still doing good (but not sellout) business, just like My Fair Lady which most experts claimed...

Sondheim has never liked his lyrics for "I Feel Pretty," so it doesn't surprise me that is one of the songs to go. He was probably enthusiastic for its removal! But it doesn't make me happy, and if I had plans to visit NYC during the time of this show's run, it would not make me enthusiastic to...

I agree. I was greatly saddened to see the reports of his passing when I logged on to the internet this afternoon. What a legend in the American theater! I saw many of his productions during their Broadway runs, and he will always hold a special place in my heart for his work in the theater.

Thank you for sharing this account, Martin. I wasn't aware of this and think it was genius!

You're right, of course, but many theaters take the chance and make changes without permission. Sometimes they get caught and fined or licenses withdrawn. Sadly (but rightly from their perspective), our personnel played by the rules.

For me, the film works better in numerous ways. In addition to "America" being better, the juxtaposition of "Krupke" and "Cool" for me makes dramatically a lot more sense. Sondheim does not agree.

If they use the lyrics from the 1961 film for "America," then the male Sharks are going to be in the number; not something that happens in the original libretto. When I did West Side Story on the stage, I was a Shark, and I BEGGED our choreographer to integrate the male Sharks into that number...

Looks good.

I suspect those female Jets are girl friends of the Jets who will dance with them at the gym. I do not see the gang becoming co-ed.

Love both of those actors and am excited to see them in these parts.

One of the absolute WORST recordings of West Side Story ever made.

I read that announcement and was kind of shocked. I thought the Robbins choreography was contractually part and parcel of doing an Equity production of the show. HIs dance instructions are also furnished with regional and amateur theater licenses. When I did it in the early 1990s, I BEGGED the...

Ah, yes, Sarah Paulson. I remember being torn that year because they were both wonderful performances, but Paulson had lost so many times over the years that this was her best chance in years to take it home. Too bad they couldn't have tied.

I didn't buy the Lady Day CD, but the video made of her performance (HBO? Showtime? PBS?) was amazing, and it was easy to see why she garnered one of her six Tonys for it. An Emmy should have been hers as well.

In 1967, a theater in Charlotte had a widescreen movie festival and screened a bunch of widescreen movies after the (disastrous but very popular) widescreen version of Gone With the Wind finished its run. One of the films shown was West Side Story, and the management stuck an intermission into...

A Bernstein biopic would be a very interesting proposition if they don't go the route of so many other entertainment personality movies and fictionalize the subject, get songs and other compositions out of order. etc.

I have seen Chita RIvera in three Broadway shows: the original Chicago, The Rink, and Kiss of the Spider Woman. She was magnificent in all of them but particularly Chicago. I couldn't get my aunt and uncle (who used to take my brother and me to NYC a couple of times a year) to go to Bye Bye...

I think it's a foolhardy notion whether they do it in period, update it for present day, or let the Sharks speak and sing in Spanish. If you want to remake a classic film musical, remake one that wasn't done very well the first time around: Porgy and Bess or Camelot or do the musical version...