'West Side Story' with a Spanish accent

When they got together at the Beverly Hills Hotel in August 1955, their legs dipping in the pool, Arthur Laurents and Leonard Bernstein were wrestling with a problem 3,000 miles away: They were trying to recast the "Romeo and Juliet" story for a modern-day musical set in New York, and their initial idea about Jews and Catholics battling each other wasn't going anywhere.

By Josh Getlin

March 18, 2009