Westside Story; Romeo and Juliet

Question: This week's blog entry focuses on the work you are doing for your Creative Project as described in the Guidelines for Creative Projects. For this entry "identify your project, the goal or goals of your project, and what contribution to the project you made. You will explain the significance of your contribution and the significance of the project as a whole. You will also explain the main problems you encountered in doing the project and how you gained some understanding or knowledge from working on the project." 

Response: 

    As a group, we were not very interested in acting out or performing any sort of theatrical play. Instead, we were all looking for a chance to convey as much information possible about a classic production, in this case 'West Side Story'. Additionally, we wanted to compare and contrast this play with Romeo and Juliet. 

    As a member of our group, I decided to contribute to our project by providing background information on the author of the original text, Arthur Laurents. Whereas Shakespeare incorporated elements from Italian culture, Laurents decided to center his book in New York City with significant Puerto Rican influences. Our project is a PowerPoint presentation in which I will contribute slides that convey my research. 

    An example of the original book's cover

    

    Generally, a slide on the author's background, and how it relates to the story as a whole is one that comes first in a presentation. My slides on Laurents' influence are meant to make sure that the audience understands the importance of NYC in 'West Side Story'. My slide pretty much helps explain the meaning behind the title of the book itself; the phrase 'West Side Story' refers to the adaption of Romeo and Juliet,which originated in England, to an American setting. 

    

    Jets vs Sharks, two rival gangs from the plot, in a fight scene from one of movie adaptions of West Side Story

    As with any group project, my partners for this presentation and I encountered some problems along the way. Picking a topic at first seemed like the hardest thing, but we understood the classiness of the Romeo and Juliet play from Europe and wanted to present a more American topic. In High School classes, much of the focus, besides Senior Year, was on European literature. For this reason, picking the topic became easy but meeting up outside of class hours to work on the project was difficult. Half of our group lives on campus while the other half doesn't and many of us go to other cities for the weekends. Regardless, I feel that we managed to overcome these difficulties and I also learned a few things. For example, it was nice to be able to see the transformation of a book from a musical text, to a theatrical play, and finally a movie. Overall, this powerpoint was an opportunity that allowed me to learn about a pretty interesting and cool adaption of Romeo and Juliet.