Stage director: Joey McKneely
Music director: Donald Chan

Performers: Chad Hilligus, Scott Sussman, Ali Ewoldt, Kendall Kelly, Oneika Phillips, Michael Jablonski, Emmanuel de Jesus Silva.

West Side Story is a tale as old as the world itself: two young people meet, are star-struck and swear their undying love for one another. Yet their different backgrounds, intolerance and the hatred that exists between their respective cultures deny them a happy ending. Their love is doomed by destiny.

The musical was first performed on September 26, 1957, at the legendary Winter Garden Theater in New York and directed by Jerome Robbins. Later, in 1961, Robert Wise immortalized the story in his famous film. Since then, numerous versions of the show have been performed around the world in different languages. However, preserving the original version poses a particular challenge, and this is exactly what we propose with this production, arranged as part of the tour celebrating the musical's 50th anniversary: a faithful replica of the Broadway original, proving that its message speaks just as powerfully to today's society as it did when it first opened.

In 1949, the renowned American choreographer Jerome Robbins got the idea to create a musical version of the story of Romeo and Juliet, set in modern-day New York City. He shared his vision with the composer Leonard Bernstein and the writer Arthur Laurents, who latched onto it enthusiastically and began working on an adaptation they intended to call East Side Story set in the Lower East Side, also known as the Village, where the Montagues would be Catholic and the Capulets would be Jewish.

Bernstein, Laurents and Robbins discussed the racial violence that was taking place in the heart of Manhattan, and they decided that this social conflict presented a good opportunity to rework their original idea, move the setting to that city neighborhood and turn the Catholic and Jewish clans into two rival gangs of Latinos and white Americans.

And so the Jets and the Sharks were born, the new Montagues and Capulets of this street-wise version of Shakespeare's best-known play. The figure of Juliet was replaced by Maria, a lovely Puerto Rican girl protected by the Jets, who falls hopelessly and tragically in love with Tony, the leader of the Sharks gang.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of its Broadway debut, the stage director Joe McKneely has decided to go back to the beginning, attempting to revive Robbins' original concept for the stage. With the same stage design and choreographies, this West Side Story revival opened a few months ago in Tokyo, met with great success in Paris and, starting on June 25, will be featured as part of the Veranos de la Villa (Summers in the City) activities.