2018 Tsou Scholar Elizabeth A. Wells
Thursday, October 25, 7 p.m.
Helen Filene Ladd Hall, Zankel Music Center

Lecture: From the East Side to the West Side: The Jewish West Side Story

Few are aware that West Side Story began as a tale of warring Catholics and Jews on Manhattanʼs East Side, shifting the ethnic focus quite substantially from the work we now know.

Primary source documents from the Library of Congress and recent oral history interviews with Arthur Laurents reframe this musical as a potent commentary on Jewish identity and experience in the 1950s.

Free & Open to the Public

About the Speaker

Elizabeth A. Wells is Dean of Arts at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick and author of West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical (2010).

Presented by the Tsou Music Scholars Series in partnership with the Jacob Perlow Series. Selections from West Side Story will be performed by the Skidmore Orchestra on December 1, 2018.