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Julia L. Foulkes is professor of history at the New School in New York and the author of Modern Bodies: Dance and American Modernism from Martha Graham to Alvin Ailey and To the City: Urban Photographs of the New Deal.
Foulkes's approach is chronological, but this is no pedantic march through time. Rather it is a fascinating read focusing equally on the show and the world into which it was born. . . . . Essential. --Choice An excellent account of West Side Story and its central role as a play and movie in American musical history and in American culture more generally. What makes the book unique is its focus on New York and the urban experience as central to the story's appeal at a time when the city was undergoing massive urban renewal, particularly on the West Side, throwing the urban poor into ethnic and racial conflict over rapidly decreasing turf. A lively, well-written book that will appeal to fans of theater and American history alike. --Lewis A. Erenberg, author of Swingin' the Dream A Place for Us tells a new story about one of US theater's most important plays. A skillful historian, Julia Foulkes delves deeply into the archive to recover the details and dynamics of West Side Story from its conception and production to its film adaptation and global circulation. In doing so, she connects that story to the contemporaneous events and cultural anxieties that made the musical both timely and timeless. --Shane Vogel, author of The Scene of Harlem Cabaret
