Love Story

With all the power that has kept it playing around the world, West Side Story will return to the bright lights of Broadway, beginning previews February 23 at the Palace Theater. This rewrite of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet — dreamed up by Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein, and Stephen Sondheim — transports the classic story to the Upper West Side amid the fierce rivalry of gang warfare in the 1950s. Jerome Robbins’ original choreography will be restaged by Joey McKneely, and to add an extra edge, this production will selectively weave Spanish throughout both the book and songs. Josefina Scaglione and Matt Cavenaugh play the star-crossed lovers, Maria and Tony. While it may not be appropriate for the youngest of children, tweens and teens are sure to relate.

New Victory Theater’s penchant toward international works of great physical virtuosity will bring on a taste of Morocco this month with Taoub (February 6-22), performed by the Groupe Acrobatique de Tanger. Blending ancient acrobatic traditions from the beaches of Tangier with contemporary technology and design, this exploration of North African culture creates evocative imagery with aerial displays. For another helping of musical culture your kids can easily digest, the Amato Opera Theater will present another one of their Opera in Brief productions, H.M.S. Pinafore (February 21), taking the pomp and circumstance of the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta and compacting it into 90 kid friendly minutes, complete with full costumes and musical highlights from the full score.

Kids can join Anna, a girl who wants everything to be perfect, at the Looking Glass Theatre in Anna’s Perfect Party And The Amazing Magician’s Marvelous Mistake (February 21-April 5), when she get a magician to cast a perfect spell and unexpected mayhem ensues at her friend Betsy Bailey’s birthday party. The partying will continue over at the Manhattan Children’s Theatre with the stage version of If You Give a Pig a Party (February 28-April 12), a musical comedy rendition of Laura Joffe Numeroff’s story of Miss Pig and her celebratory journey.

The Story Pirates land once again at the Drama Bookshop, February 7-28, with another session of their style of storytelling. Built from ideas and stories written by elementary school children, Pirate productions usually journey through the outrageous with songs, props, and puppets with every fantastic idea imaginable. Literally Alive will explore Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (February 8-May 10) in a one hour musical production. Join Jim Hawkins as he takes the journey of a lifetime when he ventures out seeking buried pirate treasure, and comes to find the real treasure within himself. This production will feature a pre-show interactive arts workshop where the audience will learn about the original book, how it was turned into a musical, and how the arts bring literature to life. Then, kids and their families can make treasure chests to take home as a souvenir. Finally, further downtown at NYU’s Skirball Center, Rebecca Frezza & Big Truck (February 7) will mount a high energy presentation of music and synchronized dance for the 4 year to 8 year old crowd.