love the ltyle of the cabare

This is an interesting account of how a team put together a provocative and innovative musical tragedy, bucking the trend of syrupy and simpler musicals for 1950s Broadway. Leonard Bernstein (for music), Stephen Sondheim (for lyrics) and Jerome Robbins (dance and direction) formed the nucleus, but there were also a playwrite, and other specialists and actors who all collaborated. The principals took a substantial risk in their budding careers and forged ahead confident of their inventiveness. The result is Broadway history, which opened the way to treating a myriad of other socially relevant subjects in later years. Though the music is what is remembered best now, it is truly a multi-media event that was pioneering in its time.

I read this because I am writing teaching materials for business execs to study, as a case of effective, if unorthodox, management. That is only one of the many many levels n which it can be read. The author offers a wonderful panorama of the dance, music, and acting that was current - and changed by this musical tradegy - at the time.

It appears that Garebian used only written sources to write this. As many of the participants were alive at least during the lat decade, this limits the account in unfortunate ways. But is it well written and a spur to read more elsewhere.

If you are interested, I would recommend this. If not, go to the biographies of the participants. Nonetheless, it is a solid view into a unique collaboration.

As I was writing a term paper about Broadway musicals a few years ago, I found The Making of West Side Story very helpful to my research. The book tells about the creation of the idea by Jerome Robbins and the subsequent collaboration with Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, and Stephen Sondheim. It tells of deep research into gang warfare, of grueling rehearsals with the oft-cold Robbins (in constrast to the gentler Bernstein), and of startled reactions to this unusual musical. My only complaint about this book is that it gives no proper respect to the movie version; it refuses to allow for the differences between the stage and the screen. Otherwise, highly recommended.

Maybe this title is the latest and best modern view of "West Side Story". Amazing and surprise you'll have spending your time reading it.

What a disappointing book. There's nothing new here at all, and it's a chore to get through this book even though it's awfully short. There are also a number of factual errors. Don't waste your money.

Why bother with a book that has incorrect information. Mr. Garebian didn't bother to read most of the articles he cites in his bibliography or he simply didn't do the research. In GYPSY, there are four songs, which were new written for the musical, and the rest are "trunk" songs (pulled from Styne's repertoire). It's a fairly well known fact which ones are "trunk" sings & which ones aren't, and Mr. Garebian gets it wrong, wrong, wrong.

It's really too bad. The idea for the book is a nice one, but it's so poorly executed you wouldn't want to rely on any fact in this book without checking and rechecking it against other sources.

What a disappointing book. There's nothing new here at all, and it's a chore to get through this book even though it's awfully short. There are also a number of factual errors. Don't waste your money.