Shane Demars performs as Tony and says goodbye to Jessica Brown, who plays Maria, during the Livingston Parish Talented Theater and Music programs’ joint production of “West Side Story” on Friday, Feb. 7, at New Covenant Church in Denham Springs.
DENHAM SPRINGS -- For three nights, talented theatre and music students joined forces to bring one of the most iconic Broadway musicals to life.
Students from Walker-area schools gave audiences plenty to cheer for when they performed multiple showings of “West Side Story” during a three-day run Feb. 6-8.
Held inside New Covenant Church in Denham Springs, around 40 students performed the famous play set in the Upper West Side neighborhood in New York City in the mid 1950s. Inspired by Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” the musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds.
At the center of it all is Tony (played by Shane Demars and Ethan Barker) and Maria (Jessica Horn, Dahlia Alkadi, and Athena Smith), who fall in love despite being from the rival gangs.
The play is based on a conception of Jerome Robbins, from Arthur Laurents’ book of the same name. The music was created by Leonard Bernstein, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
The local production featured big dance sequences, fight scenes, plenty of laughs, and much heartbreak, dealing with social themes such as bigotry, cultural misunderstanding, and violence.
Students performed under director/choreographer Fabiola Reno and music director Catherine McManus.
This program was supported in part by a Decentralized Arts Funding grant from the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge in cooperation with the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, and Louisiana State Arts Council.
