This spring the Campolindo Musical Theater Program took on the musical drama West Side Story. From March 8-17, the Cha-Cha and Mambo casts combined performed a total of eight shows in the Campolindo Performing Arts Center.

This year’s musical told a tale of two young lovers in the streets of New York city with the dilemma of being caught between rival gangs. As the romance unfolded, so did the themes of hate, violence, and prejudice. Campolindo’s Musical Theater program has been performing fully staged Broadway productions with student actors, dancers, and pit orchestra once each spring for years.

“I’ve done [the musical] since freshman year,” said junior Svea Peterson. She played roles in both the casts, however, regarding the Cha-Cha cast Peterson noted, “I played Graciella who is one of the main jets girlfriends.” Peterson has a lot that she enjoyed from this year’s musical as she said, “I really enjoyed the social aspect and a lot of the friends I made.” She also noted that there were challenges this year because “many of the scenes in which we acted had to do with real life issues”, but she felt that “overall [it] helped us as a community become more aware and connected and helped us mature with being more conscious of real world issues.”

Senior Henry Vanhouten played roles in both casts, with West Side Story being his third musical performance at Campolindo. “I played Tony” in the Cha-Cha cast, he explained. Out of all the scenes and acts in West Side Story he enjoyed the “rumble scene” the most. This musical is considered one of the hardest to vocally perform and Vanhouten said, “it took a lot of work to be able to sing it.” As a final thought he noted, “to the next generations, do the musical because it’s a lot of fun.”

Freshman Vivi Dunn participated in the musical for the first time this year as a member of the, “Cha-Cha ensemble.” With regards to her favorite part of this year’s West Side Story, she noted, “I enjoyed trying on the outfits, the dress rehearsals, and running around backstage because it’s really fun.” Dunn felt that her biggest challenge with the musical this year was how “time consuming it was”.

The Campolindo Musical Theater Programs hard work and dedication provided the Lamorinda community with true heartfelt and thought provoking performances of the tale of West Side Story.