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Working Americans Vol. 12: Our History Through Music

1957 Profile: Carol Lawrence, Maria in West Side Story

When Carol Lawrence starred as Maria in the groundbreaking Broadway musical West Side Story, the play simultaneously elevated her visibility on the American stage and announced itself as a new breed of drama: a hybrid of opera, musical theater and ballet, with a contemporary urban edge.

Life at Home

  • In its first iteration, the play was calledRomeo and Juliet, a tale of star-crossed lovers by William Shakespeare.

    Carol Lawrence broke new ground with her performance as Maria in West Side Story.

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  • Three hundred and fifty years later, the tale had been reframed as a New York-based gang rivalry between Jews and Catholics to be called East Side Story.

  • But when this American musical finally arrived on the Broadway stage in 1957, the story pitted Puerto Rican immigrants against native-born Americans.

  • Carol Lawrence was cast in the center of the love and violence as Maria in the West Side Story.

  • Born Carolina Maria Laraia on September 5, 1932, actress/singer Carol Lawrence grew up in Melrose Park, Illinois, near Chicago where her father was village clerk.

  • Carol was born to dance; by the age of 12, her tap class lessons were dominated by professionals already working in the Chicago theaters.

  • At age 13, she lied about her age to get a theater work permit.

  • As a teenager, Carol was active in local theatrical productions and was selected to appear in a number of television productions created in Chicago.

  • At her strict Italian father’s suggestion, she also changed her last name to Lawrence from Laraia.

    Young Carol tapped her way to Broadway

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  • “Laraia is really beautiful in Italian” Carol said, “but the poor TV announcers nearly went mad trying to get their tongues around it.”

  • Carol entered Northwestern University, but after her freshman year persuaded her parents that her future was on New York’s Broadway stage.

  • So the three of them—mother, father and daughter—journeyed to New York City to visit Broadway; “They must have decided it was no worse than Chicago. Anyway, they let me stay, though they’ve always been a little nervous about the whole thing.”

  • Carol supported herself with a chorus job here, a small feature part there, a few television spots—anything that would keep the dream alive.

  • Her first Broadway play was in the chorus line of a show called Borsch Capades, for which she was paid $25 a week.

  • When New York slowed down in the summertime, she gained singing and dancing experience doing summer stock that demanded a different show each week, from Guys and Dolls to Oklahoma! to Anything Goes.

  • Still, her mother lamented that she had not taken a secretarial course, and her father wanted to know whether she was supporting herself as a “streetwalker.”

  • She also fell in love with a puppet-master named Cosmo Allegretti, 11 years her senior, who worked on an experimental TV program called Captain Kangaroo that featured grown people singing children’s songs and acting crazy in a gentle manner.

  • They married in 1956 and settled into an apartment near Gramercy Park, where she helped Cosmo create puppets and repair lost eyes and whiskers whenever necessary.

  • Then one day, she heard talk of a new musical set in the slums of the city’s West Side; the Juliet part sounded beautiful.

  • Carol decided she wanted the role more than anything in the world.

    Carol’s mother thought she should be at secretarial school.

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  • West Side Story featured a script by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and choreography by Jerome Robbins.

  • “So I marched to the first informal audition with my heart in my mouth, and praise be, they asked me to come back.”

  • After the second audition, they asked her to come back again to work on a real stage, “and I began to dream.”

  • Her third tryout was on the stage of the 46th St. Theater; “Leonard Bernstein, the composer, was sitting out front, and I was afraid he’d know right away that I hadn’t much voice training.”

  • Carol had taken voice lessons, but primarily considered herself to be a dancer.

  • Bernstein loved her voice because it wasn’t “schooled.”

  • “We had to look for charm rather than perfection, because the audience might not believe in our “Juliet” if she sang like a full-blown opera star,” the legendary composer said.

  • She was asked back for one additional audition when someone beyond the light asked her for her age.

  • “I was afraid to answer for a second,” Carol said. “I knew the girl was supposed to be 17, and I was 23.”

  • That’s when the show’s author, Arthur Laurents, shouted “She’s exactly seventeen” and the issue was dropped.

  • Laurents already knew that he wanted Carol in the role of Maria and “wouldn’t have cared whether she was 70.”

  • Carol was then asked back for one more audition.

  • “That time I thought I’d really made a good impression, but then they asked me to take my hair down. I had a hairdo that I’d spent two hours on, and when it all fell in ruins, I was sure I’d look like a real mess.”

  • It was exactly the look that Jerome Robbins was seeking.

  • Set in New York City in the mid-1950s, West Side Story explored the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds.

  • The members of the Sharks from Puerto Rico were taunted by the Jets, a white working-class group.

  • The young protagonist, Tony, one of the Jets, fell in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks.

  • The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in American musical theater.

  • Bernstein’s score for the musical included “Something’s Coming,” “Maria,” “America,” “Somewhere,” “Tonight,” “Jet Song,” “I Feel Pretty,” “A Boy Like That,” “One Hand, One Heart,” “Gee, Officer Krupke,” and “Cool.”

Life at Work

  • West Side Story began the birthing process in 1949, when Jerome Robbins approached Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents about collaborating on a contemporary musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.

    Leonard Bernstein loved Carol’s voice and cast her as Maria in West Side Story.

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  • He proposed that the plot focus on the conflict between an Italian American Roman Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the Easter-Passover season.

  • Eager to write his first musical, Laurents immediately agreed.

  • Bernstein wanted to present the material in operatic form, but Robbins and Laurents resisted the suggestion.

  • Laurents wrote a first draft he called East Side Story, but the three men went their separate ways and the piece was shelved for almost five years.

  • When it was resurrected, the atmosphere surrounding West Side Story had been transformed by recent headlines detailing the brutal murder of two young teenagers in a Hell’s Kitchen park by gang members.

  • Even then, the creative team was told that West Side Story was an impossible project; no one was going to be able to sing augmented fourths, as with “Ma-ri-a.”

  • Besides, who wanted to see a show in which the first-act curtain comes down on two dead bodies lying on the stage?

  • And then they had the tough task of casting because the characters had to be able not only to sing but dance, act and be taken for teenagers.

  • Numerous producers had turned down the show, deeming it too dark and depressing, when Sondheim convinced his friend Hal Prince to read the script.

  • He liked it enough to fly to New York to hear the score; Prince recalled, “Sondheim and Bernstein sat at the piano playing through the music, and soon I was singing along with them.”

  • At rehearsal, Carol was confronted with newspaper stories describing the violent gang murders posted on the bulletin board along with the words, “This is your life.”

  • In rehearsal, the director told the two rival gangs they were not allowed to eat together or socialize, and demanded that the actors address each other using only their character’s names.

  • He wanted to cultivate the tension and endemic hatred into every line of the play.

  • After all, this musical was taking a daring step—its plot concerned a serious subject in which two characters died in the first act.

  • The intensity of the atmosphere helped foster friendship between Carol and Chita Rivera, who played Anita, the sister she had always wanted.

  • “That was a new experience for me; it’s almost impossible for women in the theater to form friendships because we’re all competing for the same roles.”

  • In West Side Story, Maria worked in a bridal shop with Anita, the girlfriend of Maria’s brother, Bernardo.

  • Although the musical was painted with an urban-tinted score accented by surly street attitudes, slanguage and snapping fingers, language posed a problem.

  • Cursing was uncommon in the theater at the time, and slang expressions were avoided for fear of dating the work.

  • Ultimately, a new language was invented that sounded like real street talk but actually wasn’t: “Cut the frabba-jabba,” for example.

  • As rapidly as her singing career was cresting, so too was her marriage crashing; fame came at a price.

  • Her husband’s equally successful career as a puppeteer on a popular TV program begin to appear pale compared to that of a Broadway actress starring in the most talked-about musical of the year.

  • Despite being the voice behind Mr. Moose, Grandfather Clock, and the Bunny Rabbit, her husband was called Mr. Lawrence at public functions, and he fully understood that they got the finest table at a classy restaurant because of her fame, not his.

    Carol’s marriage couldn’t survive her fame.

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Life in the Community: New York City

  • Throughout the 1950s, Broadway musicals were a major part of American popular culture evidenced by the number of hit records created each year from the newest stage musicals.

  • Public demand, a booming economy and abundant creative talent kept Broadway fresh because it refused to stand still.

  • As the Civil War came to a close, New York City slowly became the center of theatrical activity in America.

  • By the mid-1880s, Union Square on 14th Street and Broadway became a gathering spot for producers to assemble touring companies, managers to book tours, and actors and singers to acquire new material.

  • Soon a handful of theaters congregated around Union Square and Broadway began to develop its reputation.

  • By the turn of the twentieth century, the theater district stretched from West 37th Street along Broadway to 40th Street, culminating at the Metropolitan Opera House.

  • About the same time, a half-block on West 28th Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue, began to hold tremendous sway over the burgeoning entertainment industry.

  • This was the home of Tin Pan Alley, where an ever-changing collection of songwriters had gathered to support the booming song sheet industry.

    Songwriters in Tin Pan Alley: Gene Buck, Victor Herbert, John Philip Sousa, Harry B. Smith, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George W. Meyer, Irving Bibo, and Otto Harbach.

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  • And the two learned to live in creative synergy.

  • The theater district provided the publishers with a natural outlet for their material.

  • By 1910, at least two billion copies of song sheets were purchased annually by the American music-loving public.

  • The pioneer architect within the theater district was Prussian immigrant, inventor of cigar machines and successful businessman, Oscar Hammerstein, grandfather of the famous lyricist.

  • He developed several parcels of land from 43rd Street to 45th Street on the east side of Broadway, which became the anchor of the theater district.

  • In 1899, he opened the Victoria Theater on the corner of 42nd and Seventh Avenue.

  • By 1904, the city’s new subway system was delivering thousands of theatergoers nightly, each eager for the Broadway experience, even though most of the theaters were not actually on Broadway itself.

  • By 1910, there were 34 theaters north of or near 42nd Street, all focused on the tourist dollar and the opportunity to have their production advertised as “Direct from New York,” which was understood nationwide to represent the gold standard in entertainment.

  • There, the beautiful sets and girls of Ziegfeld Follies unashamedly sold the American dream, comedienne Fanny Brice spoofed the grand pretensions of middle-class art, and Will Rogers and W.C. Fields built their reputations.

  • The outbreak of World War I spawned hundreds of patriotic songs and dozens of Broadway plays symbolizing America’s devotion to its fighting men.

  • During the 1920s, when the nation officially went dry thanks to prohibition, Broadway stayed wet.

  • Following an evening at the theater, after the curtain went up at 8:45 most evenings, patrons completed their Broadway experience at a speakeasy or supper club nearby.

  • By the late 1920s, 20 new theaters were constructed and as many as 264 plays and musicals were performed.

  • The play, Shuffle Along, for example, introduced a variety of new dance styles, pioneered by America’s finest emerging black talent.

  • Broadway theaters prided themselves that, despite the showiness outside, the greatest glamour was inside where the gold gilt and dramatic décor might feature Victorian, art deco, or glitz galore.

  • The 1930s arrived with a thunderous bang; tourists stopped traveling, producers shut down shows, and ushers had no one to usher.

  • An estimated 25,000 theater people, the majority in New York, were displaced by the effects of the Great Depression.

  • In some theaters, prices were dropped to a $0.25 minimum, with $1.00 being the top price.

  • Actors and producers experimented with repertory productions to keep as many working as often as possible, and to keep as many productions active as they could.

  • The 1929–1930 season produced 233 productions, whereas the 1930–1931 season was reduced to 187 productions; new productions on Broadway dipped to 98 shows in 1939.

  • Yet this period featured the work of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness!, Ethel Merman, who opened in George and Ira Gershwin’s Girl Crazy, and plays by Moss Hart such as Once in a Lifetime, Merrily We Roll Along, You Can’t Take It With You, and The Man Who Came to Dinner.

  • Comedy of the 1940s was rich with farces including George Washington Slept Here, a collaboration between George Kaufman and Moss Hart, and Irving Berlin’s, This Is the Army.

  • On the Town marked the Broadway debut of composer Leonard Bernstein and choreographer Jerome Robbins; songs included “New York, New York (It’s a Helluva Town).”

  • Then, breakout hit Oklahoma! spawned the first-ever original cast album to be released; the songs “People Will Say We’re in Love,” “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” topped the charts.

  • As the decade came to an end, Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me, Kate” debuted; Carol Channing starred in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and South Pacific by Rodgers and Hammerstein won a Pulitzer Prize.

  • The 1950s opened with the hit show Guys and Dolls, whose songs included “If I Were a Bell” and “Luck, Be a Lady,” and the show The King and I starring Yul Brynner.

  • By 1955, Damn Yankees became the second big hit for the songwriting team of Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, and the press began to call the era the Golden Age of Broadway.

  • Monster hit My Fair Lady opened on Broadway and launched the careers of Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison.

  • In 1957, all of Broadway’s talk was devoted to West Side Story, and The Music Man, which won the Tony for Best Musical.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
"1957 Profile: Carol Lawrence, Maria In West Side Story." Working Americans Vol. 12: Our History Through Music, edited by Scott Derks, Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=WA12_0074.
APA 7th
1957 Profile: Carol Lawrence, Maria in West Side Story. Working Americans Vol. 12: Our History Through Music, In S. Derks (Ed.), Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=WA12_0074.
CMOS 17th
"1957 Profile: Carol Lawrence, Maria In West Side Story." Working Americans Vol. 12: Our History Through Music, Edited by Scott Derks. Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=WA12_0074.