West Side Story opens June 19 at Rockwall ISD Performing Arts Center

Rockwall County is getting one of its biggest summer arts draws when Rockwall Summer Musicals brings West Side Story to the Rockwall ISD Performing Arts Center on T L Townsend Drive for six performances from June 19 through June 28.

The run will include three evening performances and three matinees, turning the district’s performing arts stage into a local destination for one of the best-known American musicals. Rockwall ISD says its facilities are available for leasing to outside groups, and district materials describe its performing arts centers as the two largest performance spaces in Rockwall County, a reminder of how central the venue has become to community arts in Rockwall.

The production carries the weight of a title that has long been among Broadway’s most recognized works. Created by Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents, Jerome Robbins and Harold Prince, West Side Story opened on Broadway on September 26, 1957 and ran for 732 performances. Its story retells Romeo and Juliet in modern-day New York City, where the Jets and the Sharks collide, and its score includes Tonight, Maria, America and I Feel Pretty.

Director Keeli James said the musical is deeply human because it centers on people who want to belong, be loved and be understood. That framing gives the show more than nostalgia value for a local audience that knows the title but may not have seen it staged with Rockwall talent at this scale.

Ana Caballero plays Maria and Brendan Reimer plays Tony, giving the production two familiar anchors for the love story at the center of the show. Caballero has said she connects strongly with Maria’s balance of independence and family tradition, while Reimer sees Tony as someone searching for a larger life.

Rockwall Summer Musicals previously staged West Side Story at the Rockwall High School Performing Arts Center at Utley from August 13-16, 2015. The company has been described as synonymous with summer in Rockwall and as having produced summer musicals for more than a decade, which makes this return to the title feel less like a repeat and more like another marker of how firmly local audiences have embraced the season’s theater calendar.