ANTOINETTE PERRY AWARD FOR BEST CHOREOGRAPHER West Side Story (musical) 1958. The resulting film was a tremendous critical as well as commercial success—Wise’s biggest hit to date—and received 10 Academy Awards, including best picture… Stephen Casey Takes a Step in Time Recreating Jerome Robbins’ Choreography for West Side Story. Since its stage premiere in 1957, Leonard Bernstein’s score for West Side Story has been inseparable from Jerome Robbins’ choreography, a masterful marriage of … Oscar winners for West Side Story (from left to right): George Chakiris, Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise and Rita Moreno. His Broadway shows include On the Town, Billion Dollar Baby, High Button Shoes, West Side Story, The King and I, Gypsy, Peter Pan, Miss Liberty, Call Me Madam, and Fiddler on the Roof. West Side Story was originally conceived, directed, and choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Jerome Robbins is world-renowned for his work as a choreographer of ballets as well as his work as a director and choreographer in theater, movies and television. It was inspired by William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.. The story is set in the mid 1950s in the Upper West Side of New York City, a multiracial, blue-collar neighborhood. …the unusual relationship of codirecting West Side Story (1961) with Jerome Robbins, who had directed and choreographed the long-running Broadway hit on which the film was based. Robbins made it in 1951 (the same year that The King and I, with his choreography, opened on Broadway). All the dance, all the music, and all the words that make West Side Story the singular achievement it is, for Jerome Robbins—who conceived, then choreographed and directed the show—the central theme is simply “the futility of intolerance.” In the savage little ballet, Nora Kaye played the … Later, I learned that the neighbor I'd talked to that day was one of about 10 people named as a Communist by Jerome Robbins, legendary choreographer for West Side Story — … Jerome Robbins is world renowned for his work as a choreographer of ballets as well as his work as a director and choreographer in theater, movies and television. Jerome Robbins: You’re Missed in This ‘West Side Story,’ Daddy-o Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s dances for the Broadway revival swarm and sweep, but Robbins’s choreography … ... FILM & VIDEOTAPE FESTIVAL & CONFERENCE Dedicated to Jerome Robbins Sponsored by the Dance Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the International Dance Council, Inc./UNESCO; The futility of intolerance. By Lisa Higgins. LONDON EVENING STANDARD DRAMA West Side Story (musical) 1959. West Side Story is a musical with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Photograph: AP.