So sorry its been so long - did you miss me? I'm afraid life got the better of me for a while but I am now back! I had a holiday, was ill, got very busy at work, started working on a new musical theatre project (more of that later!! It's a secret!)) and of course looking after family etc.....
Anyway I wanted to let you know about a great new production that's coming to Bishop's Stortford soon and as it has a few of my mates in it, its worth a humungous plug on the blog! West Side Story runs at the Rhodes in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire from19th - 28th September
Buy West Side Story tickets here
There are a few members of BSMTC in this show - Sam Jackson, Tom Dickerson and Jay Brown - Sam is playing Bernardo, Tom is playing Tony for half the run and A-rab for the other half, and Jay is playing Detective Schrank.
I absolutely love this show, especially the music and I've seen the film so many times. It is one of my favourites of all time so I am really looking forward to seeing it on stage soon. I don't think BSTMC can ever do it really as we don't have enough dancers, and we don't have enough younger members! If I were ever to get the chance I would love to be Anita, but yup, probably too old now! (Dream on!) I fancy the idea of playing a fiery latino!
Here are a few of my favourite bits from the film:
Did you know West Side Story was originally called East Side Story? The plot originally focused on the conflict between an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the Easter Passover season. The girl has survived the Holocaust and emigrated from Israel; the conflict was to be centered around anti semitism of the Catholic "Jets" towards the Jewish "Emeralds". So how did it become a musical with such a latin flavour? Well basically, to cut a long story short - it came about because of a conversation in a hotel one day. Bernstein and Laurents met up to discuss the progress of the show and their talk turned to juvenile delinquent gangs - a conversation initiated by a story on the front page of the newspaper about a Chicano turf war. They decided to reset the musical in Los Angeles and Laurents felt he was familiar with Puerto Ricans and Harlem, so decided to change the Jewish Maria to a Puerto Rican. Anton 'Tony' became a young man of Polish/Irish descent.
They had a lot of trouble bringing it to the stage too, as Bernstein said,
"Everyone told us that [West Side Story] was an impossible project ... And we were told no one was going to be able to sing augmented fourths as with "Ma-ri-a" ... Also, they said the score was too rangy for pop music ... Besides, who wanted to see a show in which the first-act curtain comes down on two dead bodies lying on the stage?... And then we had the really tough problem of casting it, because the characters had to be able not only to sing but dance and act and be taken for teenagers. Ultimately, some of the cast were teenagers, some were 21, some were 30 but looked 16. Some were wonderful singers but couldn't dance very well, or vice versa ... and if they could do both, they couldn't act."
So there you go, they had trouble casting it too - you do need some really strong dancers who look young and can also act their socks off! What I also find really interesting is in the very first Broadway production they kept the cast 'Jets' and 'Sharks' apart so they could not socialise together in order to create more realism.
I also like the fact that Bernsetin said that the show could not "depend upon stars, being about kids"- and they basically cast a bunch of young hopefuls who were not well known - I bet that kept it really true to how they envisaged it from the start. The show certainly launched the career of Stephen Sondheim into the stratosphere - and he became one of the greatest composers and lyricists ever known.
I think a lot of people know Natalie Wood's singing voice was dubbed in the film - something she was really annoyed about apparantly, but did you know her speaking voice is also dubbed on her last line too " "Don’t you touch him!" Te adoro, Anton."??
My absolute favourite number is "America" - what is yours? I am keen to see what they do with it on the fairly small stage at Rhodes - and how they manage the dance routines. I do know that Amber Thomason, playing Anita, (the daughter of a friend of mine) is a fantastic dancer , so I am looking forward to her portrayal of Anita.
So what are you waiting for, get your tickets now - see link above!!
