Deaf Side Story Deaf Side Story Deaf Side Story is a musical based on "West Side Story", itself an adaptation of William Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet". Takes place in New York City during the mid-1950s, the musical based on West Side Story explores the rivalry between the two gangs Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different cultural backgrounds (Deaf and Hearing). The members of the Sharks from Puerto Rico are taunted by the Jets, a white working-class group. The young protagonist, Tony, one of the Jets, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the
West Side Story (film) of "West Side Story" at the 2011 Ventura Film Festival. Leonard Bernstein was displeased with the orchestrations for the movie, which was the work of Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, who had orchestrated the original Broadway production. That show had been orchestrated for roughly 30 musicians; for the movie, United Artists allowed them triple that, including six saxophone parts, eight trumpets, five pianos and five xylophones. Bernstein found it "overbearing and lacking in texture and subtlety." Stephen Sondheim, who did not like the sequence of the songs in the Broadway version, had the song "Gee, Officer Krupke" being sung before