West Side Story

Inspired by William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, the story is set in the mid-1950s in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, then a multiracial, blue-collar neighbourhood. The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds.

 Through the form of a musical, the movie explores their rivalry as well as the hate that can stem from racism and discrimination. Within this feud, two characters drive the events of the story, and as each part comes together, West Side Story reveals itself as a literary tragedy.

West Side Story is said to be a “morality play about “our” everyday problems: racism, poverty, and the destructiveness of violence” . New York circa 1950 to 1960, when the film would take place, was full of gang violence and juvenile delinquents.

It is significant because of its melding of jazz, avant-garde, Broadway, and Latin-American musical styles, predating the fusion movement by ten years. You can modernize it, perform it in difference types of genres and venues, and still its original melodic and harmonic strength comes through.