The Waukon High School Musical Theatre Department will present “West Side Story” Friday, April 16 at 7 p.m., Saturday, April 17 at 7 p.m. and a Sunday Matinee April 18 at 1 p.m. The production is being brought to the Waukon High School auditorium stage under the guidance of Director Sarah J. Bieber, Assistant Director Louise Wild and Choreographer Adam Hooten.
The musical comes to life in silence, and the tension between the Jets and the Sharks comes alive at the snap of a finger. This snapping rhythm sets the tones of the mayhem beginning to take place under the foggy, hot and humid summer sky in Puerto-Rican New York.
The playwright, Arthur Laurents, wrote a story of two hostile teenage gangs fighting for leadership among the corners, bridges and buildings of the West Side. Waukon High School’s Ryan VanderVelden, as “Bernardo”, and Ethan Hooten, as “Riff”, star as leaders of the Sharks and the Jets street gangs.