Sondheim wrote the lyrics for West Side Story at 27

Person: Stephen Sondheim
Lived: 1930–2021
Field: Musical Theater
From: American

The story

The idea for West Side Story began in 1949, when the choreographer Jerome Robbins proposed to Leonard Bernstein and the playwright Arthur Laurents a modern version of Romeo and Juliet set in New York. The project stalled for years, then revived in the mid-1950s, when newspaper stories about youth gangs led the team to reimagine it as a clash between two street gangs on the Upper West Side: the Jets, who are white, and the Sharks, recent migrants from Puerto Rico.

At that time Sondheim was a young songwriter whose own first musical, Saturday Night, had not reached the stage. At a party he ran into Laurents, who had liked his lyrics for Saturday Night and told him the team needed a lyricist. Sondheim auditioned for Bernstein. He really wanted to write music as well as words, and he asked his mentor Oscar Hammerstein II for advice. Hammerstein told him to take the job: it was a chance to work with very gifted professionals, and he could always write his own music later.

Sondheim turned passages of Laurents's dialogue into lyrics and wrote the words for songs including "Tonight", "America" and "I Feel Pretty". He also helped persuade the producer Harold Prince to take on the show when other producers thought it too dark. West Side Story opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on 26 September 1957 and ran for 732 performances. Bernstein, initially credited as co-lyricist, removed his name, giving Sondheim sole credit. Critics hailed its blend of music, dance and drama, and its dark theme and focus on prejudice and poverty marked a turning point in musical theatre.

Two years later Sondheim wrote the lyrics for Gypsy. Both shows became classics. The 1961 film of West Side Story won ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and Steven Spielberg's 2021 film brought it to a new generation.

Sondheim was always critical of his early lyrics, feeling some were too poetic for the characters, but they have outlived his doubts and remain among the best-known songs in American theatre.

Why it matters

West Side Story brought a story of prejudice and young lives lost to violence to the musical stage, and its songs remain among the best known in American theatre.