In 1947, Jerome Robbins approached Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents about collaborating on a contemporary musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. He proposed that the plot focus on the conflict between an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish family, each living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, during the Easter/Passover season. They would call it East Side Story. Only after Laurents completed a first draft did the group realize that it was little more than a musicalization of themes that had already been covered in plays like Abie's Irish Rose.
Bernstein suggested that they rework East Side Story and set it in Los Angeles, but Laurents felt that he was more familiar with Puerto Ricans and Harlem than he was with Mexican Americans and Olvera Street. The New York newspapers were filled with articles about gang warfare, keeping the show's plot timely. The title was changed to West Side Story to represent the new subject matter's neighborhood and, when Bernstein decided that he needed to focus solely on the score, Stephen Sondheim, a relative newcomer, was brought in to write lyrics. Thus, the team – and eventually the musical, West Side Story, as we know it – was born.
After tryouts in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia beginning in August 1957, the original Broadway production of West Side Story, a musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 26, 1957, to positive reviews. Directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, the new musical starred Larry Kert as Tony, Carol Lawrence as Maria and Chita Rivera as Anita. The production ran for 732 performances at the Winter Garden Theatre before closing on June 27, 1959, touring the U.S. for ten weeks and then returning to the Winter Garden Theatre from April 27, 1960, through December 10, 1960, for another 253 performances.
It had its European premiere at the Manchester Opera House in November of 1957 before transferring a month later to London, where it opened at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End on December 12, 1957, and ran until June 1961 with a total of 1,039 performances. Robbins directed and choreographed, with co-choreography by Peter Gennaro. In February 1962, the West End production launched a five-month Scandinavian tour, opening in Copenhagen, continuing to Oslo, Goteborg, Stockholm and Helsinki.
A Broadway revival opened at the Minskoff Theatre on February 14, 1980, and closed on November 30, 1980, after 333 performances. It was again directed and choreographed by Robbins, with the assistance of Tom Abbott and Lee Becker Theodore. It starred Ken Marshall as Tony, Josie de Guzman as Maria and Debbie Allen as Anita.
A new production, slightly retooled by Laurents for modern relevancy, with some of the lyrics translated into Spanish, ran at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., from December 15, 2008, through January 17, 2009, as an out-of-town tryout for a Broadway bound revival.
Laurents' new West Side Story then began Broadway previews on February 23, 2009, and opened at the Palace Theatre on March 19, 2009. The cast featured Matt Cavenaugh as Tony, Josefina Scaglione as Maria and Karen Olivo as Anita. The production closed on January 2, 2011, after 748 performances and 27 previews, and was again succeeded by a successful national tour.
In addition to those national tours directly following these high-profile productions, national tours of West Side Story were also produced in 1987, 1998 and 2002.