West Side Story West Side Story West Side Story is a musical with book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. 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 was cleared in an urban renewal project for Lincoln Center, which changed the neighborhood's character). The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The members of
West Johnston High School amounts of experience to the organization. The first class defined the standards by which the program would operate by and excel. The marching band competed in its first Bands of America Regional Competition in New York. In the next few years, the group performed the following shows: "The Inner Compass" was a show based on an individual's decisions made based on their inner compass. The drill depicted many images of compasses pointing west (a play on the high school's name). All the music for this show was composed from the Broadway Musical/movie "West Side Story". During this season, West traveled