Music & Lyrics

As I mentioned before, West Side Story is my favorite musical (and one of my favorite movies) of all time, and I grew up watching it over and over during my childhood. I watched it so much that the tape on the VHS wore down over the years, and I eventually bought myself the special edition DVD which I still watch once in a while to get my “fix.” The music in West Side Story is timeless and unforgettable, and it’s an ingenious reinvention of Shakespeare’s classic Romeo and Juliet to 1950s New York City, with plenty of social commentary thrown into the mix.

My dream has always been to see it live on stage… and my dream came true on Sunday! Dan surprised me last month with tickets, since West Side Story is in San Francisco at the Orpheum Theater for a month. Since my parents-in-law also have always loved West Side Story (since the movie came out when they were in high school, their generation was even more heavily influenced by the groundbreaking film), we got them tickets too! Dan’s father’s birthday was late October and his mother’s birthday is early November, so it made for a memorable birthday gift for both of them. 🙂

The show was amazing and did not disappoint! I was surprised that the original dialogue and scenes were kept mostly intact. The only things that were changed was that some of the order of the scenes and numbers were switched around, and parts of some of the songs sung by the Sharks and their girls were in Spanish, which I thought was a refreshing update. I don’t know Spanish, but since I was already so familiar with the original songs, I knew exactly what they were singing. I know every line in the original so well that I was finishing the cast members’ sentences in my head. Scary, I know….

If you live in the Bay Area, I really recommend catching a performance before it leaves San Francisco at the end of the month! If you live elsewhere, definitely go when it comes to your nearest city! 🙂