Tag Archives: West Side Story

New ‘West Side Story’ Has Winning Strengths, But Weaknesses Too

The West Side Story from the Prather family’s new Broadway Palm series at the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center has so much to praise, yet, joins local productions to underscore how there are always aspects that fail to live up to what everyone intuits the piece can be.

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An Electrifying New Riff On West Side Story At The Maltz

The electrifying choreography by Al Blackstone and the vibrant staging by Marcos Santana in the Maltz Jupiter Theatre’s West Side Story not only wipe away any disappointment at not seeing Jerome Robbins’ vision, their work is so strong and original that Robbins rarely invades the audience’s consciousness.

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Challenges When West Side Story Staged By A Puerto Rican

For a director born in Puerto Rico, Marcos Santana sees West Side Story’s depiction of gang warfare between New York natives and Puerto Rican immigrants containing some aspects that don’t quite ring true for contemporary residents of the Caribbean island.

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Wick’s West Side Story Is Adequate But Not Transcendent

There is nothing especially wrong with The Wick Theatre’s riff on West Side Story, But if you’ve seen other productions, by comparison, the modestly entertaining result is competent but rarely reaches those emotional peaks that the work is proven capable of.

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What Kind Of Year Was It? Our Critics’ “Best Of” 2016 Lists

Critics and award judges have been talking about it for weeks: The sheer amount of high quality work has made evaluating the last 12 months unusually challenging, but also an opportunity to remember one of the most rewarding calendar years in recent memory. So here’s a supremely subjective stab by all three critics here at Florida Theater On Stage at recognizing the shows and performances that stood out from a pack of productions.

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Dancers and Singers Propel Thrilling West Side Story

Actors’ Playhouse pulls out all the stops to mount its annual winter centerpiece production. Director David Arisco molded a troupe of actor-singer-dancers who deliver a vibrant evening remarkable for its prolonged sections of power and verve.

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Hirschman’s Solely Subjective Summation Of Shows That Shouldn’t Be Missed

These are not at all necessarily what we predict will be the best shows this season (although they may be) or the best attended or the most popular or the most award-winning. We don’t care. These are the shows we most want to see for a variety of reasons.

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Theater Shelf: New Book Deconstructs West Side Story

West Coast author Misha Berson got it right when she observes that West Side Story’s place in world-wide popular culture exceeds that of a mere musical.

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