West Side Story Revival To Bow in DC prior to Broadway — Page 3

Oh, I had no problem with Joey's direction or his re-creation of Robbin's choreography I just hated ALL of the production values. All of the costumes looked like they shopped at Forever 21.

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I know Robbins has to be credited as 'original...blah, blah, blah' and I believe that a certain amount of his choreography has to bu used as well. I'll have to look into that a bit more.

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Ohhhh. I'm SO excited for this!!
But.. I am just hoping that the choreography will still stay true with Robbins origional idea!

Yeah it is

Yup, you all are correct, the choreography is as copyright as anything in the book, and there is no way around it. But could you imagine someone trying new choreography and it not holding up as well as Robbins'? It would make the show disastrous.

But yeah, any professional production of WSS will have the same choreography, plain and simple.

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Exactly. And I for one have never gotten to experience a professional production of WSS, never have seen the choreography live. I am so friggin excited to be able to see it. But could you imagine Cool without those bended snaps into the jumps? The mambo without those head bangs? And what about the Rumble? You wanna see someone else dance-choreograph that? Oh dear, we'd just have flat-out fighting, and the beauty of the way the moves correlate with the music would be lost.

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Unless you count the warring chorus boys of Mamma Mia! vs. Mary Poppins....

wickedrentq, I agree completely. The dance numbers that you mentioned may be the most iconic ensemble choreography ever put on film. It would be next to impossible to produce any version of WSS without them. I am also very excited about seeing this live, on Broadway, where it belongs.

i wonder when tickets, go on sale i am so happy that i live in dc

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"Me too. Hope it doesn't mean that it'll have an orchestra of 10 or 12 musicians."

You CANNOT do WSS with such few musicians. There's just no way. Especially with so many songs reliant on just the orchestra to mesh with the dancing. There's just no way it could even be conceivable.

I've played the reed 2 book in 2 different productions, and...there's just no way. You start with the prologue...you need to start with the sax, then have the clarinet overlap, then have more clarinets/instruments come in. You need the strings/woodwinds for the slower songs, and the brass for the more violent songs. So many of the songs have buildups from one instruments to two to three to lots -- "Cool" for instance.

Moreover, there's so many genius connections in Bernstein's score that could be missed if you lowered the instruments. Like the way the french horn plays the "Somewhere" theme at the end of "Balcony Scene(Tonight)", the oboe playing the "Maria" theme during the "Cha-Cha," etc. The 4 bass clarinets that open "A Boy Like That"...just eerie. Then "Somewhere" is almost all cello...you need like 3 percussionists to handle the complicated percussion which is central to so many songs...you need all the instruments to create the sheer chaos of "The Rumble." You need all the unified elements of hte score brought out -- lowered sevenths, tritones, hemiolas, major/minor triads...the latter especially you need lots of instruments.

Yeah, there's just absolutely no way.

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I am a bit worried about how "contemporary" it'll be.

Me too. Hope it doesn't mean that it'll have an orchestra of 10 or 12 musicians.

I totally just had an image in my head of a John Doyle WSS where the rumble consisted of the Sharks/Jets hitting each other with violins and flutes...Bernardo would be stabbed with a violin bow, of course...

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To be fair lildigs- the other Puerto Rican principals must be fluent in spanish.