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
½ûÂþÌìÌà 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.