Deaf Side Story the problems having to get hearing members of the audience to understand the Sharks’ signing in their scenes. Rigney follows Brewer on how it all started and the challenges they all faced. 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
Kenton's West Side Story harmonic and rhythmic structures. To fill in the blanks, there are numerous 'Richard-isms' in "Kenton's West Side Story" that surface musically; a great deal of sylistic characteristics of his renderings of Bernstein's music are borrowed from the successful 1956 "Cuban Fire!" LP and his other Kenton orchestrations. Many of the Afro-Latin themes from both Kenton LPs ("Cuban Fire!" vs "West Side Story") are similar but both retain their uniqueness in the hands of Richards. It is mentioned earlier about Mirisch Company executive being impressed with the Johnny Richards orchestrations but in the end there is little doubt Richards designed his