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West Side Story – Spielberg remake (1 Viewer)

Adam Lenhardt

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My suspicion that they were going with Maddie Ziegler for Anybodys was incorrect. Instead they went with Ezra Menas, a nonbinary actor who transitioned from female. It's an interesting choice, since the character defied gender norms at a time when gender roles were far more rigorously enforced than they are now.

I like the subdued colors of the costumes. Anything the movie can do to differentiate itself from the 1961 film, the better off it will be.
 

Jake Lipson

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I'm on board.

Also, since we know the film is being released in 2020, perhaps the thread title should be updated to reflect the release date.
 
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Robert Crawford

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FIRST LOOK AT STEVEN SPIELBERG’S WEST SIDE STORY REVEALED

The first look at Academy Award®-winner Steven Spielberg’s WEST SIDE STORY has been revealed. An adaptation of the original Broadway musical, WEST SIDE STORY explores young love and tensions between rival gangs the Jets and the Sharks on the streets of 1957 New York. The film is now in production for Twentieth Century Fox.


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(Click on photo for larger image)



Pictured left to right are: Jets members Anybodys (Ezra Menas), Mouthpiece (Ben Cook), Action (Sean Harrison Jones); Jets leader Riff (Mike Faist); Baby John (Patrick Higgins); Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler); Maria’s brother and Sharks leader Bernardo (David Alvarez); and Sharks members Quique (Julius Anthony Rubio), Chago (Ricardo Zayas), Chino (Josh Andrés Rivera), Braulio (Sebastian Serra) and Pipo (Carlos Sánchez Falú).

The cast also includes Ariana DeBose (Anita); Ana Isabelle (Rosalia); Corey Stoll (Lieutenant Schrank); Brian d’Arcy James (Officer Krupke); Curtiss Cook (Abe) and Academy Award®-winner Rita Moreno, who plays Valentina and also serves as one of the film’s Executive Producers.

Other previously-announced cast includes:

SHARKS
• David Aviles Morales
• Yesenia Ayala
• María Alejandra Castillo
• Annelise Cepero
• Andrei Chagas
• Jeanette Delgado
• Kelvin Delgado
• Gaby Diaz
• Yurel Echezarreta
• Adriel Flete
• Carlos E. Gonzalez
• David Guzman
• Jacob Guzman
• Ana Isabelle
• Melody Martí
• Ilda Mason
• Juliette Feliciano Ortiz
• Edriz E. Rosa Pérez
• Maria Alexis Rodriguez
• Gabriela Soto
• Ricky Ubeda
• Tanairi Vazquez
• Jamila Velazquez
• Isabella Ward

JETS
• Brianna Abruzzo
• Kyle Allen
• Kyle Coffman
• Harrison Coll
• Kevin Csolak
• Kellie Drobnick
• Julian Elia
• Myles Erlick
• Leigh-Ann Esty
• Sara Esty
• John Michael Fiumara
• Paloma Garcia-Lee
• Garett Hawe
• Eloise Kropp
• Lauren Leach
• Jess LeProtto
• Skye Mattox
• Adriana Pierce
• Brittany Pollack
• Daniel Patrick Russell
• Talia Ryder
• Jonalyn Saxer
• Halli Toland
• Maddie Ziegler

WEST SIDE STORY is produced and directed by Steven Spielberg from a script by Academy Award®-nominated screenwriter and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner. The film has been adapted for the screen from the original 1957 Broadway musical, which was written by Arthur Laurents with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and concept, direction and choreography by Jerome Robbins. Tony Award®-winner Justin Peck will choreograph the musical numbers in the film. Also leading the production are Tony Award®-winning producer Kevin McCollum and Academy Award®-nominated producer Kristie Macosko Krieger.

The film’s music team includes renowned conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who will helm the recording of Bernstein’s iconic score; Academy Award®-nominated composer and conductor David Newman (Anastasia) who will be arranging the score for the new adaptation; Tony Award®-winning composer Jeanine Tesori (Broadway’s Fun Home and Thoroughly Modern Millie), who will be working with the cast on vocals; and Grammy®-nominated music supervisor Matt Sullivan (Beauty and the Beast, Chicago), who will serve as executive music producer for the film.

WEST SIDE STORY will be released by The Walt Disney Studios in the US on December 18, 2020.
I'm actually excited for this remake. I heard they're filming it in Harlem.

https://nypost.com/2019/06/17/west-side-story-set-photo-reveals-first-look-at-sharks-and-jets/
 

bujaki

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Sid Ramin died July 1, aged 100. He shared an Oscar for the scoring of the 1961 film West Side Story. He also helped orchestrate the B'way show. He knew Bernstein since childhood and were lifelong friends.
 

MartinP.

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FIRST LOOK AT STEVEN SPIELBERG’S WEST SIDE STORY REVEALED
full

Looks like they're filming it in sepia this time.

I like the subdued colors of the costumes. Anything the movie can do to differentiate itself from the 1961 film, the better off it will be.

I guess they could just go ahead and film it in b&w.

"Musical theater legend and WEST SIDE STORY lyricist Stephen Sondheim on set with director-producer Steven Spielberg during the production of the new film version of the original musical."
View attachment 60380

I wonder if this means Sondheim is rewriting some of the lyrics? I recall him saying in an interview once, particularly about the song "I Feel Pretty", that while he is pleased that audiences liked the lyrics, he doesn't now feel that they are really in the personality of the way the character would actually talk.
 

PMF

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My truest concerns are about the casting of Doc.:D
 
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TJPC

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Looks like they're filming it in sepia this time.



I guess they could just go ahead and film it in b&w.



I wonder if this means Sondheim is rewriting some of the lyrics? I recall him saying in an interview once, particularly about the song "I Feel Pretty", that while he is pleased that audiences liked the lyrics, he doesn't now feel that they are really in the personality of the way the character would actually talk.
He has trouble with an uneducated Puerto Rican girl who just arrived in the US using words like charming and entrancing.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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About time we saw a fire-escape!

I wonder if this means Sondheim is rewriting some of the lyrics? I recall him saying in an interview once, particularly about the song "I Feel Pretty", that while he is pleased that audiences liked the lyrics, he doesn't now feel that they are really in the personality of the way the character would actually talk.
Based on Kushner's comments, they're definitely using the revised lyrics for "America". Whether they're the 1961 lyrics for the original film or Lin-Manuel Miranda's bilingual lyrics from the Arthur Laurent's revival in 2008-2009, is unclear. If I were a betting man, though, I'd say the 1961 lyrics.
 

Matt Hough

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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 (as they did in the film) since the Jets get two additional numbers in addition to "The Jet Song" ("Cool" and "Krupke") that the Sharks don't. He wouldn't even consider it. I always felt the Sharks on stage were underused. It may be there was a Robbins choreographer's bible that he was required to follow in order for the license to be granted to the theater. Ironically, the dance break that he used during the audition for guys and gals was the choreography for "America" that the women ended up performing in the final show.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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Aside from the fact that it wouldn't be a good look in 2019 to have a song that unquestioningly praises America while shitting on Puerto Rico, I always thought the film version works better because Bernardo is a more essential character than Rosalia and the film version uses the number to help define the relationship between Bernardo and Anita.
 

Matt Hough

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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.
 

bujaki

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He has trouble with an uneducated Puerto Rican girl who just arrived in the US using words like charming and entrancing.
This is a prejudiced and stupid statement from a man who is unusually brilliant. I am Puerto Rican and many of the so-called "uneducated" Puerto Rican men and women can extemporize verses in the most complex metric stanzas that exist in the Spanish language. One should be so lucky as to witness the "duels" between these impromptu poets with no formal education!
Long before 1957, public schooling in Puerto Rico was mandatory and all children had to attend school and had to take English courses as well. Maria and Bernardo, etc., would not have been semi-illiterate as implied by Sondheim. I really take umbrage to such an opinion.
I worship the artist, but then Wagner was not perfect either.
 

Jake Lipson

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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 (as they did in the film) since the Jets get two additional numbers in addition to "The Jet Song" ("Cool" and "Krupke") that the Sharks don't. He wouldn't even consider it.

When you license a show, the license specifies that the show must be performed as written. West Side Story onstage is not written with the Sharks in "America." In order to use the film version, a director would have to make that request to the agency that handles the license, and then the authors would decide whether or not to allow a change to be made. It's not something that a director or choreographer can just decide to do in a vacuum, even if the movie version made the same change.
 

Matt Hough

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When you license a show, the license specifies that the show must be performed as written. West Side Story onstage is not written with the Sharks in "America." In order to use the film version, a director would have to make that request to the agency that handles the license, and then the authors would decide whether or not to allow a change to be made. It's not something that a director or choreographer can just decide to do in a vacuum, even if the movie version made the same change.
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.
 
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TJPC

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I used to help with the productions at the highschool where I taught. The guy who directed the productions took on a free form approach. We were doing “Annie Get Your Gun”. At one point he had the two leads get introduced and break into “Applause, Applause” (from the Lauren Bacall musical)!
 

MartinP.

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In 1989, a persistent man named Craig Smith got a lot of talented people together in Hollywood to "put on a show" to help raise money for the Aids Healthcare Foundation in Los Angeles. What he wanted to do was a parody of sorts of West Side Story to be called "West Hollywood Story." It would follow two gangs, one straight and one gay and the general plot of the original, updated to the present day in the City of West Hollywood.

Was he successful? This is a footnote in a book published in the fall of 2016 titled: "A Place for Us: 'West Side Story' and New York" by Julia L. Foulkes.

Chapter 7, Footnote #32: One of the only parodies that the original creators approved was in a benefit for AIDS in Los Angeles, titled "West Hollywood Story." The licensing company insisted that the Aids Hospice Foundation "program must include a line in prominent position that the authors of West Side Story have made an unusual exception to their general policy of not allowing alternate 'versions' due to their sympathy and support for the Hospice program and AIDS relief"; see Music Theatre International to Craig Smith, C.S., 9 June 1989. b.79 f.26, JRP/NYPL.

I attended this production, which had three performances in West Hollywood's Plummer Park and I have to say it was one of the best theatre experiences I've attended. Part of it is that who knew it was going to be so professional. All the people involved were top drawer and the book and lyrics were brilliant. The production spared no expense--and there was no expense for it because they were all focused on raising money, so everything was donated to the cause.

The group formed the Charity Parody Foundation and over the next three years did three more productions: Fiddler on a West Hollywood Roof, West Hollywood Gypsy and Oliver Twisted, all in different locations. (The man who did most of the lyric re-interpretations, and brilliantly I might add, wanted, from the start, to do South Pacific, but the R&H organization would only grant permission if the royalties were paid, and, of course, they were trying to raise money so paying royalties wasn't an option. This is ultimately why the Foundation disbanded.)

I wish there was a video recording of West Hollywood Story--of all these productions! To give you an idea what they might have been like, though, there's at least one segment of one of them. Brandon Maggart, as Tevye, in Fiddler on a West Hollywood Roof. In this version, Tevye is a water delivery man (like Sparklett's) in the Fairfax (Jewish) section of Los Angeles. After making a delivery to a flamboyant gay man, he wonders what it would be like if "he" were and sings "If I Were a Gay Man." Soon after, he finds out that each of his three children, two guys and one girl, are LGBT.

 
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