Screenings of musicals that encourage audience belting usually stick to frothy fare like Grease and Labyrinth (yes, Labyrinth—10/29 at 92YTribeca, BTW), so we’re especially tickled about Friday’s sing-along screening of West Side Story, set to cap an evening celebrating the 20th anniversary of the death of Leonard Bernstein at Symphony Space.
The night kicks off with a concert of Bernstein’s works (featuring Harolyn Blackwell, whom he handpicked to lead the 1979 West Side Story revival), but things will really heat up when the lights go down on the 1961 Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise adaptation of the stage musical, [only somewhat] arguably the Greatest Film Ever Made Where People Burst Spontaneously Into Song and/or Dance.
Bonus: the screening’s hosted by Marni Nixon, who sang the part of Natalie Wood’s Maria (and Audrey Hepburn’s Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, and a bunch of other roles for leading ladies who couldn’t carry a tune—she even hits the high notes for Marilyn Monroe in the Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend scene from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes).
Also debuting Friday in Symphony Space's Thalia Café is an exhibit of photographs of Bernstein from Steve J. Sherman’s book Leonard Bernstein at Work: His Final Years, 1984-1990.
Peter Jay Sharp Theatre at Symphony Space, Friday 10/22 at 7:30PM, $38 (adv.)-$43 (day of show). Head here for details and tickets.
-EB
What I'm listening to: Extra Blues - Leon Redbone
