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: Broadway 1956 West Side Story (1956)
Book: Arthur Laurents
Music: Leonard Bernstein
2021 film adaptation Quickly to:
In short: West Side Story is a musical classic by Leonard Bernstein, based on Shakespeare’s Romeo & Julia. The music, dance, and violent setting were sensational in 1956. The young Sondheim wrote only the lyrics, but the first signs of his distinctive style are already evident.
It’s not only one of the greatest musicals ever written, it’s arguably the greatest dance musical ever. I wouldn’t let [Sondheim] change anything because I love the lyrics too much. I think they’re spectacularly great.
Tony Kushner (Playwright and screen writer, EGOT-winner)
2021 film adaptation (photo: Niko Tavernise) Overview West Side Story - background and excerpts
At 27, Sondheim wrote the lyrics for Leonard Bernstein’s music in West Side Story, a New York musical adaptation of Romeo & Julia. The show addresses underlying social themes such as violence, socioeconomic and cultural divides, discrimination, and inequality of opportunity. It is regarded as one of the most popular musicals of all time.
Plot Summary
The Jets and the Sharks, two rival youth gangs from different cultural backgrounds, fight for control of a neighborhood in New York City. Tony, a former member of the Jets, meets and falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. Their love sets off a chain of events that further escalates tensions between the gangs.Reception
West Side Story was a major critical and commercial success. Its choreography, innovative music, high energy, and intense focus on youth gang violence were seen as groundbreaking. The show has been regularly revived for nearly seventy years. Oscar-winning film adaptations were released in 1961 and 2021. Sondheim, himself a passionate movie lover and expert, was enthusiastic about Steven Spielberg’s adaptation, which was released in the year of Sondheim’s death.Sondheim’s first Broadway musical has arguably remained his best-known work, especially in the Netherlands. West Side Story consistently ranks in the top five or ten in lists of the greatest musicals of all time.
Lyrics
Despite its success, Sondheim had mixed feelings about West Side Story. Not only was the music not his own, but he also struggled with Bernstein’s poetic, sentimental preferences. A hallmark of Sondheim’s later work is that his lyrics closely match the worldview and language of his characters. In West Side Story however, to Sondheim’s frustration, street kids sing lines like “Today the world was just an address.” Sondheim later tried to modify certain lyrics he felt were too sappy, overly showy, or inconsistent with the characters, such as lines like “It’s alarming how charming I feel” and “pretty wonderful boy” in “I Feel Pretty.” However, his collaborators’ enthusiasm for the original lyrics prevented these changes. Tony Kushner made no adjustments to the lyrics either for his 2021 film adaptation.Video excerpts (in show's order)
- “Something’s coming” uses baseball as a frame of reference for the hopeful protagonist, Tony.
- Tony sings “Maria” after his first magical encounter with her. Since Tony knows nothing about Maria at that point, Sondheim felt there was little he could sing about other than her name.
- In “I feel pretty” Maria tells her friends about her love for Tony.
- In “A boy like that” Anita tries to dissuade her friend Maria from pursuing her “forbidden” love for Tony.
Ansel Elgort, “Something’s coming” (2021) [Lyrics] Will it be?
Yes, it will.
Maybe just by
holding still.
It’ll be there.Shirley Bassey, “Something’s coming” (1979) [Lyrics] Julian Ovenden, “Maria” (2015) [Lyrics] Say it loud and there’s music playing.
Say it soft and it’s almost like praying:
Maria.Rachel Zegler, “I feel pretty” (2021) [Lyrics] Gee, Officer Krupke,
Krup you!Marni Nixon, Betty Wand, “A boy like that” (1961) [Lyrics] When love comes
so strong,
there is no
right or wrong.Group discussion with Michael Weber, Porchlight Roundtable (2020) 
2021 film adaptation (photo: Niko Tavernise) Stephen Sondheim about West Side Story
“In fact, looking back at all the West Side Story lyrics now, I become aware of how my growing confidence over the two years of writing the show allowed me to improve my work; the later lyrics, like “Something’s Coming,” “Gee, Officer Krupke” and “Like Everybody Else,” have a relaxed tone which is markedly less self-conscious that the earlier ones. Perhaps that was the most important thing the show did for me. Despite my mixed feelings about what I contributed to it, it was – along with Allegro – the show which shaped my professional life.”
Stephen Sondheim, Finishing the hat/Look, I made a hat. The Collected Lyrics (New York 2011) More West Side Story: audio and video
Cast albums
Original Broadway Cast (1957/1999) 
Motion Picture Soundtrack (1961) 
Broadway Revival Cast (2009)
Motion Picture Soundtrack (2021) Films/full shows/concerts
West Side Story (1961) West Side Story (2021) – trailer Go to More Sondheim for our Sondheim Archives.
West Side Story in the Netherlands
Upcoming production
DE GRAAF & CORNELISSEN
Run: November 2025-June 2026
Opening: November 23rd, 2025, Nieuwe Luxor Rotterdam
Tickets/info: Click here.Most recent large production
JOOP VAN DEN ENDE THEATERPRODUCTIES
Opening: September 8th, 1996, Koninklijk Theater Carré, Amsterdam
Cast: Addo Kruizinga (Tony), Maaike Widdershoven (Maria), Hilde Norga (Anita), Perry Dossett (Bernardo) and others
Translation: Koen van Dijk
Director: Eddy HabbemaAudio and video
Joop van den Ende (1996-1998) Joop van den Ende (1996-1998) – Addo Kruizinga, Maaike Widdershoven, “Vannacht” [Tonight], “Ik voel me heerlijk” [I feel pretty], “Maria” Joop van den Ende (1996-1998) – Perry Dossett, Hilde Norga and others, “Amerika” [America] Reviews of West Side Story
Original Broadway Production (1956)
“This is a bold new kind of musical theatre – a juke-box Manhattan opera. It is, to me, extraordinarily exciting. In it, the various fine skills of show business are put to new tests, and as a result a different kind of musical has emerged. […] Robbins and his superb young dancers carry the plot as much as the spoken words and lyrics do. The lyrics, by Stephen Sondheim, have simple grace, and there is a lovely tribute by the sidewalk Romeo to his dusky girl, Maria.” – John Chapman, The Daily News (1957)
1961 film adaptation
“Even more notable, however, is the music of Leonard Bernstein and most of all the breathtaking choreography of Jerome Robbins, who in film is not limited by space restrictions of the stage. His dancing numbers probably are the most spectacular ever devised and lensed, blending into story and carrying on action that is electrifying to spectator and setting a pace which communicates to viewer. Bernstein’s score, with Stephen Sondheim’s expressive lyrics, accentuates the tenseness that constantly builds.” – Whitney Williams, Variety (1961)
2021 film adaptation
“Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story 2.0 is an ecstatic act of ancestor-worship: a vividly dreamed, cunningly modified and visually staggering revival. No one but Spielberg could have brought it off, creating a movie in which Leonard Bernstein’s score and Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics blaze out with fierce new clarity. Spielberg retains María’s narcissistic I Feel Pretty, transplanted from the bridal workshop to a fancy department store where she’s working as a cleaner. This was the number whose Cowardian skittishness Sondheim himself had second thoughts about. But its confection is entirely palatable.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian (2021)
Broadway 2020 (photo: Jan Versweyveld) Your West Side Story
