West Side Story | Pantheon

29 Oct–2 Nov 2002
The King’s, Glasgow

Artistic Director	Steven Mann
Choreographer	Lynne Bustard
Musical Director	Gordon Currie
Production Director	Wilma Forbes
Stage Manager	Jack Murdoch
Full production team »
Tony	Thomas Hart
Maria	Julie Heggie
Anita	Lindsay Ashworth
Bernardo	Martin McCormick
Riff	Alan Fraser
Chino	Alex Summers
Anybody’s	Kim Mclaughlin
Lt. Schrank	Martin Cook
Doc	Andrew Rodger
Krupke	Grant Thomson
Full cast list »

West Side Story transposes Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to 20th century New York. The love story of Romeo and Juliet becomes that of Tony and Maria. The feud between the houses of the Capulets and the Montagues is re-created between two teenage gangs, the Jets and the Sharks; the famous balcony scene of Shakespeare’s play takes place on the fire-escape of an ugly New York tenement.

Broadway’s legendary choreographer Jerome Robbins came up with the idea of transforming Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet into a musical, [Lt. Schranke faces off against the Jets] set against the backdrop of New York City gang warfare in the late 1950s. With fantastic music from Leonard Bernstein and a powerful script written by Arthur Laurents, they created a show that changed the face of musical theatre forever. The film version, which was released in 1961, went on to win 10 Oscars, including Best Picture.

West Side Story is a mixture of vibrant dance and powerful drama: it is full of fantastic music and well-known songs, including Maria, Tonight, America and the poignant Somewhere.

Our production ran for one week, ending Saturday 2 November, and played to packed houses.