West Side Story to play at the Palace Theatre

The Broadway revival of West Side Story, in a new production directed by two-time Tony Award winning librettist Arthur Laurents, has announced that the show will play at the Palace Theatre, currently home to Legally Blonde.

West Side Story will open on 19 Mar 2009, following previews from 23 Feb 2009.

Tickets will go on sale to the public on 18 Oct 2008.

West Side Story will play an out of town engagement from 16 Dec 2008 - 17 Jan 2009 at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., where the musical made its world premiere in 1957.

Tony Award nominee Joey McKneely ('The Boy from Oz,' 'The Life') will recreate Jerome Robbins�s original choreography. (Robbins died in 1998.)

"This show will be radically different from any other production of West Side Story ever done. The musical theatre and cultural conventions of 1957 made it next to impossible for the characters to have authenticity. Every member of both gangs was always a potential killer even then. Now they actually will be. Only Tony and Maria try to live in a different world" said Arthur Laurents, who was recently nominated for a 2008 Tony Award for his direction of Gypsy, also one of his librettos.

This production, with an onstage cast of 37 and 30 musicians in the orchestra pit, will introduce the unprecedented element of selectively weaving Spanish throughout both the book and songs.

West Side Story is written by two-time Tony Award winner Arthur Laurents (book) and multiple Tony and Grammy Award winners Leonard Bernstein (music) and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics).

West Side Story transports the tale of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to the turbulent streets of the Upper West Side in 1950's New York City. Two star-crossed lovers, Tony and Maria, find themselves caught between the rival street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds, the "Jets" and the "Sharks." The musical tells of their struggle to exist together in a world of violence, hate and prejudice.

The Bernstein and Sondheim score features such classics of the American musical theatre as "Something's Coming," "Tonight," "America," "I Feel Pretty" and "Somewhere."

Full casting and creative team will be announced shortly.

West Side Story had its Broadway premiere in 1957, and was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins. The production earned Robbins a Tony Award for Best Choreography.

The show was revived on Broadway in 1960, 1964 and 1980. Except for the 1964 revival, which was directed by Gerald Freedman, all previous Broadway productions were directed by Jerome Robbins and featured his original choreography.

The revival is being produced by Kevin McCollum, James Nederlander, Jr. and Jeffrey Seller.