I would like, if I can, to broaden the possibilities of the musical theater. I think there’s a better ‘Oklahoma!’ someplace, a better ‘West Side Story.’ And I’d like to be mixed up in it.
Modern elites live in bubbles of liberal affluence like Ann Arbor, Brookline, the Upper West Side, Palo Alto, or Chevy Chase. These places used to have impoverished neighborhoods nearby, but the poor people got chased out by young singles living in group homes, hipsters, and urban homesteading gay couples.
I trained for the marathon. I run along the East River, and I used to run all the way down Manhattan, up the West Side and back home.
I actually love ‘West Side Story.’ I think it’s an amazing film to watch.
My wife is a professor at UCLA in Los Angeles, but otherwise, I’d be right back living on the Upper West Side.
People used to feel oddly empowered to tell me all the reasons I couldn’t win. Because I was a woman. Because I was a lesbian. Because I was from the West Side of Manhattan.
My mom and dad are New Yorkers who left the tenement streets of the Bronx and came to Los Angeles when ‘West Side Story’ was real. They have the scars to prove it.
My background did not start with the East Side; it started with Greenwich Village, which is West Side.
I run in the West Side highway. I’ve gotten recognized, but unless you’re a runner, you really can’t do nothing but just point.
When I was four, we moved to the house on the west side of Chicago where I grew up. My earliest memories are of that first summer.
In high school, my first thing ever was I played Tony in ‘West Side Story’ when I was about 17. I was a really shy kid, and I just, like, forced myself to learn how to sing this one month because I loved ‘West Side Story’ so much, and I somehow managed to get the role.
I was a Spanish dancer. I don’t mean to put that down, because that was great, too, but nothing like the kind of dancing you had to do in ‘West Side Story,’ which was called jazz.
I was at Elon University in North Carolina for two years pursuing my BFA. And after my sophomore year, I was cast in the Broadway Tour of ‘West Side Story.’ I just kind of – it always was my favorite show growing up.
‘The Last Five Years,’ we sang almost everything live. When we’re in a convertible on the West Side Highway, there was no point – it’s not going to be usable sound. But any time we were indoors, we were singing live.
I don’t believe I was jinxed or hexed by winning an Academy Award in my first picture, ‘West Side Story.’
A lot of people say to me, ‘Is this good, to do to a Shakespeare piece?’ And I think, ‘You know, ‘West Side Story’ did it very cleverly, in a different way.’ But if you look at ‘Bonnie and Clyde,’ ‘Titanic,’ ‘Avatar,’ ‘Grease,’ ‘Brokeback Mountain’… they’re all ‘Romeo and Juliet’ stories.
When I was running for speaker, people would go out of their way to point out why I wasn’t going to win: ‘You’re a woman, you’re too liberal, you’re gay, you’re from the West Side of Manhattan,’ which in that context was an insult.
I danced in a company of ‘West Side Story’ when I was very young. It was most of the original cast – Larry Kert, Chita Rivera – and Jerry Robbins directed. It was tough, a wonderful initiation for me.
Love stories happen in communities outside of just the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
‘West Side Story’ I used to watch all the time – I don’t know why. Well, I do – it’s a great movie. I love the music in it. I love the actors.
I sing seriously to my mom on the phone. To put her to sleep, I have to sing ‘Maria’ from West Side Story. When I hear her snoring, I hang up.
It’s kind of wild and wonderful that ‘West Side Story’ continues to have a life after all these years. And when you see young people who are really engrossed by this film, that’s so beautiful.
Gary Sinise and I go the furthest back of the Steppenwolf people; we were both saved from academic mediocrity as sophomores by being cast in ‘West Side Story’ by this transformationally beautiful teacher named Barbara Patterson.
I think ‘West Side Story’ is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, musicals ever put onscreen – or stage, for that matter. I, frankly, like Zeffirelli’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ very much, too. I grew up with that… I loved it. I loved the score; I loved the acting.
I think you could find some waves on the west side of Denmark, but I never tried it.
I’m basically an Upper West Side Jewish writer.
‘West Side Story’ I used to watch all the time – I don’t know why. Well, I do – it’s a great movie. I love the music in it. I love the actors.
‘The Last Five Years,’ we sang almost everything live. When we’re in a convertible on the West Side Highway, there was no point – it’s not going to be usable sound. But any time we were indoors, we were singing live.
In the States, it takes you a lifetime just to get from Chicago’s South Side to the West Side.
As I walk around, I have met 70-year-old women who live on the Upper West Side who love the show. And I met a couple in Kansas – a couple of truck drivers who drove around together – who loved it. It’s popular all over the place and definitely in the gay community.
In high school, my first thing ever was I played Tony in ‘West Side Story’ when I was about 17. I was a really shy kid, and I just, like, forced myself to learn how to sing this one month because I loved ‘West Side Story’ so much, and I somehow managed to get the role.
I can’t say for sure where I was headed the first time my mom put a blue blazer on me. Church, probably. West Side Presbyterian in Ridgewood, New Jersey, specifically, where my blazer was paired with a clip-on tie and a pair of khakis for a Sunday morning with my fellow congregants.
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