ABSTRACT
Jerome Robbins, known primarily as a Broadway choreographer, began creating in the director/choreographer role with the musical stage version of Peter Pan in 1954. In 1949 Robbins gathered together book writer Arthur Laurents, who had just written his first Broadway play Home of the Brave (1945), and composer Leonard Bernstein, who had just written the score for Robbins’ ballet Fancy Free (1944), and pitched his idea for “the Romeo Project.” The image of conflict and tension presented in the prolog is carried throughout in numbers like “Cool,” showcasing not only conflict between rival gangs but internal conflict within its members. Robbins physicalizes this battle of restraint and full-blown explosion of emotion through the tightening up of muscles and then bursts of release extended all the way to the toes and fingers. West Side Story has remained in the public’s consciousness since its premiere.
