Jazz for aficionados

West Side Story is a musical with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and conception and choreography by Jerome Robbins.[1] It was inspired by William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.

The story is set in the Upper West Side neighborhood in New York City in the mid-1950s, an ethnic, blue-collar neighborhood (in the early 1960s much of the neighborhood would be cleared in an urban renewal project for the Lincoln Center, changing the neighborhood's character).[2][3] The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The members of the Sharks, from Puerto Rico, are taunted by the Jets, a white gang.[4] The young protagonist, Tony, a former member of the Jets and best friend of the gang leader, Riff, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in American musical theatre. Bernstein's score for the musical includes "Something's Coming", "Maria", "America", "Somewhere", "Tonight", "Jet Song", "I Feel Pretty", "A Boy Like That", "One Hand, One Heart", "Gee, Officer Krupke", and "Cool".

The original 1957 Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins and produced by Robert E. Griffith and Harold Prince, marked Sondheim's Broadway debut. It ran for 732 performances before going on tour. The production was nominated for six Tony Awards including Best Musical in 1957,[5] but the award for Best Musical went to Meredith Willson's The Music Man. Robbins won the Tony Award for his choreography and Oliver Smith won for his scenic designs. The show had an even longer-running London production, a number of revivals and international productions. A 1961 musical film of the same name, directed by Robert Wise and Robbins, starred Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris and Russ Tamblyn. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won ten, including George Chakiris for Supporting Actor, Rita Moreno for Supporting Actress, and Best Picture.

Before it was a play or movie, it was an LP with just beautiful music.

O-10, a correction if I may.  It was a Broadway musical ("play") first.  The cast album was the first recording of the music and the movie came after.  There have been subsequent Broadway revivals and recordings of the music.

Frogman, I heard the music from an LP no later than 57 now that I remember, I guess that was from the play.

Since you're a musician, maybe you can explain to us who wonder why "The Music Man" won the award for best musical?

I don’t think that being a musician is what might qualify me to explain since the reasons have more to do with societal issues than musical; although the musical are certainly part of the reason. The reasons why are probably the same as the reasons that the musical had a lot of difficulty getting financial backers and suffered some production false starts: many thought that the themes of the story were dark and unsettling. After all, what would 1957 audiences prefer to hear? Perky, easily hummable tunes like "76 Trombones" about a traveling band instrument salesman? Or, exotic sounding (for the time) songs that spoke about gang violence, interracial love and ends in tragedy? Like many great works it was "ahead of its time"; or, as Schubert recently wrote, "had the courage to be in the time".