Shakespeare musicals

Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story is a layering of theatrical devices, a Hollywood riff on both a famous musical and a Shakespearean story for 21st-century audiences.

Sixty years old this week, the 1961 movie West Side Story, based on the acclaimed Broadway musical inspired by Romeo and Juliet, also became a de facto representation of US Latinx in musicals for many years.

While Shakespeare musicals borrowed plots, characters, and situations from England’s best-known poet, they remained essentially “American.”