WILLIAM GOLDMAN   
"The one exception that immediately comes to mind, West Side Story, isn't an exception at all: Jerome Robbins gave the star performance there, as incandescent as any of the [others mentioned.]"

In his Broadway chronicle The Season, Mr. Goldman comments
on the notion that the crucial ingredient to the success of a hit musical
[e.g. Hello Dolly!, Fiddler on the Roof, Mame, Man of La Mancha, Cabaret]
is the unforgettable "star performance" of its leading player.

   ANTONIO BANDERAS
"Chita Rivera! Sometimes, I just want to stop in amazement in rehearsal. She doesn't show it, but she's carrying 50 years of Broadway history on her back. She was in West Side Story when it was not even a movie! And she's elegant about it. She's not imposing anything—she's just a trouper. I admire her very much."

Quoted in the Spring, 2003 issue of Front and Center,
the magazine of the Roundabout Theatre Company, when asked
which of today’s Broadway performers he most admires. Both
Mr. Banderas and Ms Rivera received Tony nominations for their
performances in the Roundabout’s 2003 revival of  Nine The Musical."

JOE PANTOLIANO    
"West Side Story. I grew up watching it and have been in love with Natalie Wood my whole life. Sometimes, I'll watch it and sing 'I Feel Pretty.'"

Quoted in the September 5, 2003
issue of Entertainment Weekly,
in response to the magazine's poll
on celebrities' "Guilty Pleasures."

   STEVEN BOCHCO
"People pay 80 to 100 bucks to walk into a Broadway theater. Nobody seeing West Side Story sits there and thinks, 'This is B.S. These gangbangers are suddenly stopping to bust into, you know, Mariaaaa!' It's an accepted genre, musical theater, so it didn't represent that big of a leap to musical television."

Quoted in the August, 2005 issue of Esquire, the producer of
such well-received TV fare as Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law,
and NYPD Blue offers justification for his confidence in
Cop Rock, a police show with a musical format that, high hopes
notwithstanding, was a quick flop.

JASON ALEXANDER    
"I really adored [Jerome Robbins], and I saw him be evil. But ultimately, I think I was always able to understand. I said to him one time, 'I know why you have a demon.' He said, 'Yeah, why?' I said, 'Well, the fact of the matter is that you can dance anything you create better than anybody you give it to, but you can't dance it all at the same time, and so it's never going to be exactly what you see in your head and I bet it drive you insane.' He said, 'You've nailed my life.'"

Quoted in Dance with Demons by Greg Lawrence.
Jason Alexander won a Tony Award for his
appearance in Jerome Robbins Broadway.

    TONY KUSHNER
"When the subway brakes are engaged, they sing the first three notes of 'There's a Place for Us' from West Side Story."

From Mr. Kushner's mini-profile in New York Magazine's
October 6 2008 issue, when asked to name his "Favorite New York noise."

More info at nytimes.com

ROBERT BLAKE   
"'Cowboying' is when you get in a motor home or a van and you just let the air blow in your hair. And you wind up in some little bar in Arizona someplace, and you shoot a game of one-hand nine-ball with some 90-year-old Portuguese woman that beats the hell out of you. And the next day you wind up in a park someplace playing chess with somebody, and you go see a high school play where they’re doing West Side Story. And you just roam around and get some revitalization, that there are human beings in the world, that there are people living their lives that have no agenda."

Quoted on CNN.com on the occasion of his acquittal
of murder charges, Mr. Blake is describing his plans to
begin his days as a free man by going "cowboying."

   TERRENCE McNALLY
"Chita Rivera is our strongest link to the Golden Age of the American Musical. She worked with all the great choreographers and composers and was present at the creation of such seminal masterpieces as 'The Dance at the Gym' from West Side Story when the talent in the room was a veritable Mount Rushmore of the American theatre: Bernstein, Sondheim, Robbins, Laurents and Prince. I hope our show reminds audiences of what that level of theatre was like and what it still can be if the talent, the technique and the passion are there. Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life looks back in order to look forward."

Playwright-director McNally is quoted in a
Playbill.com news article announcing plans to present
Chita Rivera's 2005 autobiographical musical.

WILLIAM GOLDMAN   
"Next was West Side Story; no comment necessary."

From The Season by William Goldman, in which the author
lists all of Harold Prince’s successful shows to date,
attaching to each (but one) some statistically or critically
favorable data as validation of the show's qualifications as a hit.

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