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Laurents's work in radio and film during World War II was an excellent apprenticeship for a budding playwright and screenwriter. He also had the good fortune to be based in New York City. His first stage play, Home of the Brave , was produced in 1945.
- Music Division, Library of Congress
- Arthur Laurents Papers, circa 1900-2011
Laurents helped to shape the planned “East Side Story”, a modern Romeo and Juliet adaptation into the vital and gritty story of two rival street gangs jockeying for turf rights, while Tony and Maria fall blissfully in love.
Dec 1, 2021 · With the Steven Spielberg film coming soon, three critics, a playwright and a theater historian weigh in on whether the musical deserves a new hearing — and how.
Laurents’s book is lean and muscular, moving the story at high speed while working several clever improvements on the Romeo and Juliet plot.
West Side Story is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. Inspired by William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, the story is set in the mid-1950s in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, then a multiracial, blue-collar neighborhood.
The playwright and screenwriter Arthur Laurents wrote the books for two true classics of musical theatre, West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959), and directed the hit musical La Cage aux...
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May 5, 2011 · “Emotions precede thought, emotions determine thought; plays are emotions.” This was the guiding principle of American playwright, screenwriter, and stage director Arthur Laurents (b. Brooklyn, NY, 14 July 1917; d. New York, NY, 5 May 2011), whose remarkable career spanned seven decades.