Editing West Side Story (section)

===Collaboration and development===
In New York City, Laurents went to the opening night party for a new play by [[Ugo Betti]]. There he met Sondheim, who had heard that ''East Side Story'', now retitled ''West Side Story'', was back on track. Bernstein had decided he needed to concentrate solely on the music, and he and Robbins had invited [[Betty Comden]] and [[Adolph Green]] to write the lyrics, but the team opted to work on ''[[Peter Pan (1954 musical)|Peter Pan]]'' instead. Laurents asked Sondheim if he would be interested in tackling the task. Initially he resisted, because he was determined to write the full score for his next project (''Saturday Night'' had been scrapped). But [[Oscar Hammerstein II|Oscar Hammerstein]] convinced him that he would benefit from the experience, and he accepted.{{sfn|Laurents|2000|pp=346–347}} Meanwhile, Laurents had written a new draft of the book changing the characters' backgrounds: the male lead, once an Irish American, was now of Polish and Irish descent, and the formerly Jewish female lead had become Puerto Rican.<ref name=factsheet>Gottlieb, Jack (Guide and Commentary). [http://www.westsidestory.com/archives_factsheet.php "'West Side Story' Fact Sheet"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081201100213/http://www.westsidestory.com/archives_factsheet.php |date=December 1, 2008}}, WestSideStory.com, 2001, accessed August 18, 2011</ref>

The original book Laurents wrote closely adhered to ''Romeo and Juliet'', but the characters based on Shakespeare's [[Rosaline]] and the parents of the doomed lovers were eliminated early on. Later the scenes related to Juliet's faking her death and committing suicide also were deleted. Language posed a problem; [[profanity]] was uncommon in the theater at the time, and slang expressions were avoided for fear they would be dated by the time the production opened. Laurents ultimately invented what sounded like real street talk but actually was not: "cut the frabba-jabba", for example.{{sfn|Laurents|2000|p=349}} Sondheim converted long passages of dialogue, and sometimes just a simple phrase like "A boy like that would kill your brother", into lyrics. With the help of Oscar Hammerstein, Laurents convinced Bernstein and Sondheim to move "One Hand, One Heart", which he considered too pristine for the balcony scene, to the scene set in the bridal shop, and as a result "Tonight" was written to replace it. Laurents felt that the building tension needed to be alleviated in order to increase the impact of the play's tragic outcome, so comic relief in the form of Officer Krupke was added to the second act. He was outvoted on other issues: he felt the lyrics to "[[America (West Side Story song)|America]]" and "[[I Feel Pretty]]" were too witty for the characters singing them, but they stayed in the score and proved to be audience favorites. Another song, "Kid Stuff", was added and quickly removed during the Washington, D.C., tryout when Laurents convinced the others it was helping tip the balance of the show into typical musical comedy.{{sfn|Laurents|2000|pp=350–351}}

Bernstein composed ''West Side Story'' and ''[[Candide (operetta)|Candide]]'' concurrently, which led to some switches of material between the two works.<ref>Some of the music Bernstein wrote for ''West Side Story'', but that was not used in the production, was later integrated into the ''[[Chichester Psalms]]''.</ref> Tony and Maria's duet, "One Hand, One Heart", was originally intended for Cunegonde in ''Candide''. The music of "[[Gee, Officer Krupke]]" was pulled from the Venice scene in ''Candide''.<ref name="Bibliography">Burton, Humphrey. [http://www.westsidestory.com/archives_bibliography.php "Leonard Bernstein by Humphrey Burton, Chapter 26"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081017184521/http://www.westsidestory.com/archives_bibliography.php |date=October 17, 2008}}, WestSideStory.com, 1994, accessed August 18, 2011.</ref> Laurents explained the style that the creative team finally decided on:
{{blockquote|Just as Tony and Maria, our Romeo and Juliet, set themselves apart from the other kids by their love, so we have tried to set them even further apart by their language, their songs, their movement. Wherever possible in the show, we have tried to heighten emotion or to articulate inarticulate adolescence through music, song or dance.<ref>{{cite news |author=Laurents, Arthur |url=http://www.westsidestory.com/archives_herald1.php |title=The Growth of an Idea |work=[[New York Herald Tribune]] |date=August 4, 1957 |access-date=August 18, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110926222313/http://www.westsidestory.com/archives_herald1.php |archive-date=September 26, 2011 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all}}</ref>}}

The show was nearly complete in the fall of 1956, but almost everyone on the creative team needed to fulfill other commitments first. Robbins was involved with ''[[Bells Are Ringing (musical)|Bells Are Ringing]]'', then Bernstein with ''Candide'', and in January 1957 ''A Clearing in the Woods'', Laurents' latest play, opened and quickly closed.{{sfn|Laurents|2000|pp=351–352}} When a backers' audition failed to raise any money for ''West Side Story'' late in the spring of 1957, only two months before the show was to begin rehearsals, producer [[Cheryl Crawford]] pulled out of the project.{{sfn|Laurents|2000|pp=326–328}} Every other producer had already turned down the show, deeming it too dark and depressing. Bernstein was despondent, but Sondheim convinced his friend [[Harold Prince|Hal Prince]], who was in Boston overseeing the out-of-town tryout of the new [[George Abbott]] musical ''[[New Girl in Town]]'', to read the script. He liked it but decided to ask Abbott, his longtime mentor, for his opinion, and Abbott advised him to turn it down. Prince, aware that Abbott was the primary reason ''New Girl'' was in trouble, decided to ignore him, and he and his producing partner [[Robert E. Griffith]] flew to New York to hear the score.{{sfn|Laurents|2000|p=354}} In his memoirs, Prince recalled: "Sondheim and Bernstein sat at the piano playing through the music, and soon I was singing along with them".<ref name="Bibliography"/>