Karen Olivo and West Side Story Cast to Appear on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars

Karen Olivo and cast members from the Broadway revival of West Side Story will perform the song “America” on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars, which airs on Tuesday, April 14 at 9pm.

The show, which features a book by Arthur Laurents — who is the director of the production — and music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, transports Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to the turbulent streets of the Upper West Side in 1950’s New York City as two star-crossed lovers, Tony and Maria, find themselves caught between the rival street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds, the “Jets” and the “Sharks.” Laurents’ revised libretto interweaves Spanish throughout certain segments of the book and score, with Spanish lyrics by Tony Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Olivo, who plays Anita, previously appeared on Broadway in In the Heights, Brooklyn The Musical, and Rent, and played Sheila in the 2007 Public Theater’s staging of Hair at the Delacorte Theatre.