Well, I've posted this on the Main Board, in a West Side Story thread about the Debbie Allen clip from the 1980 Tonys, but I had a feeling my Off-Topic buddies never knew this, so apologies to those who read this over there...
I worked on the 1980 Broadway revival of West Side Story. While it wasn't perfect, there were certain moments that were astonishing, like Debbie and the girls in that number, the scherzo in the ballet and Josie De Guzman's acting in the final scene.
There's a lot of talent in that clip of the Shark girls: look for Yamil Borges singing the "lovely island" lyrics; Marlene Danielle, who went on to play in Cats for the entire run; and a very young Harolyn Blackwell, opera-star-to-be, who was also the pit voice singing "Somewhere" during the ballet. Heavenly...
Two of the understudies for Tony have gone on to distinguish themselves brilliantly: Steven Bogardus (before he appeared in Falsettos) and Brent Barrett (before he appeared in Chicago and Kiss Me Kate and before he became such a hunk!). One of the Shark boys was Michael De Lorenzo who went on to be a TV star.
We lost several of the Jet boys during the Awful Years, including the beautiful and talented Mark Fotopolous and the effervescent Reed Jones. Reed, who was my best friend, went on to create the role of Skimbleshanks in the Broadway Cats, and I have posted his picture many times on this board. Reed's memorial service-- onstage at the Winter Garden--served as the inspiration for the memorial service in Paul Rudnick's Jeffrey.
Jerome Robbins had final say over the casting and--genius though he was--some of his ideas were peculiar, to say the least.
He wanted to the Jets to be "all-American," which ended up making them look like a midwestern Boy Scout troupe. (A gay midwestern boy scout troupe.) One of the Jets, the very clever Brian Kaman who played Baby John, made up a parody lyric that went "When you're a Jet, / You're a Jet all the way, / From your first pirouette / To your last grand jete."
Robbins and Bernstein fought over the casting. Laurents and Robbins fought over the acting. Sondheim paced. Peter Gennaro, Gerald Freedman, Lee Theodore and Tommy Abbott carried out Jerome Robbins's directions. Ruth Mitchell carried her stage manager's book from the 1957 production and would say to Debbie, Josie and Ken: "Chita, you move stage left. Carol, stage right. Larry, stay where you are."
One day Peter Gennaro actually brought Chita in to show Debbie how to do some of the flourishes he had forgotten. Chita remembered them ALL. By the end of the day, Chita and Debbie were dancing "America" together.
Me? I was someone in a tree. I saw EVERYTHING. ;-}
Oh dear, I do go on about this, don't I...?
Updated On: 2/7/06 at 01:24 PM
