Jamie Muscato and Adriana Ivelisse in West Side Story at Curve Leicester. Pictures: Ellie Kurttz
Musical Theatre Review contributor Tina Foote counts herself very lucky in that she saw NIKOLAI FOSTER direct West Side Story with NYMT in 2013 at Manchester’s Victoria Warehouse.
Foster was joined by a dream creative team including Drew McOnie (choreographer), takis (designer) and Tom Deering (MD), plus a wonderful cast of 40 young performers and 35 musicians. It remains one of her favourite productions ever of West Side Story and introduced amazing talents such as Amara Okereke (Maria) and Siena Kelly (Anita).
Now, six years on, Foster is revisiting the show in a very different space (Curve Leicester), with professional performers and a new creative team.
She asks… What can we expect from this new production? How has your experience from 2013 coloured your vision, if indeed it has?
The space at the Victoria Warehouse in Manchester is clearly so different from the more formal space that we’re presenting West Side Story in this time round at Curve. That has played a massive role in guiding our choices towards this new production.
The Victoria Warehouse was enormous, I think it really was the size of a football pitch, and with a cast of 40 and an orchestra of 35, we needed to find really bold ways to fill the space and connect with an audience.
I think what’s similar between the production we did in Manchester and this one at Curve is we have again cast very young performers. The performers at National Youth Music Theatre were the age of the characters as written in the show and, although our company here at Curve are a little bit older, they’re as aligned to the age of the characters in the world of West Side Story as we could find.
When we did it at Victoria Warehouse, we tried to make the interaction between the actors as real, as visceral and as believable as possible. We’ve absolutely done that this time round and with more experienced, older performers we’re able to investigate some of the darker themes in the play.
We focused on gangs in New York during the 1950s and today to really inform that reality. We approached the piece in Manchester with an operatic look and we’ve done the same here at Curve. It has moments where it feels close up and real but around is quite an operatic vision which I believe meets the music head on.
The casting is great – with Adriana Ivelisse, a Puerto Rican native, making her professional debut, along with Jamie Muscato, a much more experienced performer. Did you have particular people in mind when casting this? And how was the audition process?
We went into the casting process with a completely open mind. We work with an incredible casting director, Kay Magson, and her brief was very much to bring us the freshest, most dangerous and interesting talent working in British theatre today.
When Jamie Muscato walked into the room, we knew immediately we had found our Tony. He has a sort of dreamy, open quality about him which is matched with a really dark, intelligent, dangerous underbelly. The combination of those factors made him the ideal casting.
Adriana came into the space and she was like a sparrow, she was delicate and dangerous and magical and provocative all at once. When she said she was from Puerto Rico, that clinched the deal. Before she sang, we were all crossing our fingers because she spoke with such passion and conviction about life in Puerto Rico, her journey as a young actor and how she would approach the role. We all waited with baited breath to hear her sing and she clearly blew our minds with her astonishing vocals and her incredible acting.
You have entered a crowded field today, with a flurry of current interest around West Side Story. There is a new film in the offing from Spielberg, a new production in Manchester and now a new version planned on Broadway.
Clearly this is related to the estates of Bernstein, Laurents, Robbins and Stephen Sondheim himself, now allowing much more flexibility with WSS. What changes has this allowed you to make and why were they important to this production? Why should audicences see your West Side Story?
The choreography is obviously a key part of this play. The whole original production was created, crafted and curated by Jerome Robbins, one of the greatest choreographers we’ve ever known.
We have now created this brand new production with additional orchestrations, new design and an entirely new creative team. At the heart of it is one of the greatest new choreographers to emerge on the international dance scene, Ellen Kane. She has completely reinvented West Side Story alongside musical supervisor Sarah Travis and musical director George Dyer. The thought processes and vision she brings to every moment of the music and how that is realised in space through the choreography is completely mind-blowing.
This means audiences see West Side Story differently; they see it absolutely in the period it was written but through the prism of the 21st century. I think the choreography, coupled with George Dyer’s amazing orchestrations, Sarah Travis’ musical supervision and this extraordinary cast means this is a must-see production.
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