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I am excited from reading your review printcess! Just last night I bought tkts. for the first week in April! I am glad to hear that the quality of this revival is top notch. I was actually surprised to get good seats as new musicals seem to book out in advance. Is this a sign of the times?

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I'll be attending this production in April. The article in the Mar 8 New York Times Arts & Leisure section discusses this production and the changes that have been made from the original. It mentions that the Robbins Foundation approved the changes, and describes exactly what they are.

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The best lyrics in WSS are probably the ones to "Something's Coming" which was one of the last written, when the team realized that Tony didn't have anything introducing his character until "Maria" which really doesn't say much about Tony himself. Great meaty lyrics that set a character without overly drawing attention to themselves.

I've always felt that this should be "Prince Siegfried's Anthem": it's so much more evocative than any moody solo at the end of Act I, even if it is more optimistic than brooding.

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Luckily, Tony isn’t a Puerto Rican and they didn’t put the lyrics in Spanish, so people can appreciate them as written.

“Something’s Coming” is a fine Bernstein tune, as well. It’s my favorite song in the score.

The NYT article EricMontreal22 links to is well worth reading. Now that we have Spanish speakers and Anita gets raped, more or less, do we also have a sufficient amount of profanity to make it all really real?

Thanks for the detailed review, printscess. I hope others will report. If you see it a second time, tell us about that, too, please. :(

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The NYT article EricMontreal22 links to is well worth reading. Now that we have Spanish speakers and Anita gets raped, more or less, do we also have a sufficient amount of profanity to make it all really real?

Thanks for the detailed review, printscess. I hope others will report. If you see it a second time, tell us about that, too, please. :)

During "Officer Krupkee" (sp?) lewd male hand gestures were added. I am far from being a prude but I felt that those up and down hand gestures did not bring any value to the song. My 17 y.o. son even mentioned those gestures as we left the theater and commented that in fact they distracted from the scene. My 19 y.o. called him a prude and a baby (sibling rivalry never ends) but I happen to agree with my younger son.

Aside from that, there was just enough profanity to make you realize that these were 2 street gangs who hated each other. As my younger son says: gangs who just happen to pirouette. :(

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Something's Coming is one of my fave pieces in the score too (and the only place where Sondheim blatantly helped with the music as well--Bernstein was having trouble turning his ideas into "Broadway" sense and a young Sondheim helped with the syncopation in the accompaniment).

Printscess, what did you think about the dropping of the Nightmare ending to Somewhere (and the addition of a young boy to sing Somewhere)? Those are the two big changes that everyone I've talked to have felt were done for the wrong reasons and take away from the drama. Arthur Laurents has a new book on directing that just shipped last week and it's a fascinating read--both for what it reveals and for all the grudges and bitchiness Laurents still seems to have. One gets the feeling he was just *waiting* to be able to stage West Side Story without Bernstein or Robbins watching over him--for good and bad.

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It's very interesting to be reading this thread while we're getting ready here to see Pacific Northwest Ballet in the West Side Story Suite.

I'll be making a trip to Seattle froim Victoria just to see that (I'm also going over for the revival of my fave musical, Sunday in the Park with George so it's starting to become pretty expensive--but I can't resist). Does anyone know if the Nightmare from the Dream Ballet is kept in the Suite? I knwo Robbins deleted it from Jerome Robbins Broadway among some controversy (which is where Arthur Laurents has, wrongly IMHO, made the excuse that Robbins would approve--not realizing that a ballet in a dramatic piece and a ballet as an excerpt serve very different functions).

To be honest as excited as I am to see the WSS numbers performed by a talented company, I've seen them before when I saw the London revvial of the original WSS in 2000. I'm even more excited to see Balanchine's Slaughter on Tenth Avenue which PNBallet well be doing on the same program and I've never seen. Broadway ballet heaven!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrJZdp5Vi5E The cast performing America on Letterman

And NBC Nightly News had a piece on the show--11 mins or so mainly of Laurents yabbering away ;) Apparantly it has the highest advance sales in the HISTORY of a Broadway revival--so whatever the merits or faults of the new production it seems audiences were waiting for it.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/vp/29762745#29755805

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Youtube has two wonderful clips of America, one from Letterman and one from Dancing with the Stars. They're a month apart and you can see how much more confident a dancer the, non dancer, Karen Olivo has become as Anita. The Robbins choreography is still slightly toned down for her but she makes it work.

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