The Sharks, comprised of Samuel B. Wollner ‘08 (“Chino”), Michael A. Mohammed ‘06 (“Indio”), Matthew S. Smith ‘08 (“Pepe”), and Dustin M. Saldarriaga ‘06 (“Bernardo”) take on the Jets in Cabot House’s of West Side Story.

Thursday, April 20-Saturday, April 22, Thursday, April 27-Saturday, April 29. 8 p.m. Cabot House Junior Common Room. Tickets available through the Harvard Box Office, (617) 417-8146. $10; $5 students.



Moving from the mean streets of New York to the bright lights of Broadway to a more humble stage at Harvard, Leonard Bernstein’s tragic musical “West Side Story” opens this week at Cabot House.

Directed by Cabot House Administrator Susan Livingston, the Cabot House Musical is a long-standing tradition with a cast made up mostly of Cabot residents and Quadlings with a few River-dwellers mixed in. Though casting was originally open to Cabot residents only, auditions were opened to other houses after the first round to fill roles left unclaimed.

Cabot’s rendition of “West Side Story” looks to be polished and invigorating, though pared down from the elaborate Broadway show.

“It’s been pretty modified because none of the cast members really has any dance experience, so we cut a lot of the dancing and focused more on the singing because we do have some talent in the area. It is probably a simpler show than the original,” says Samuel C. Brondfield ’08, who plays Tony, the show’s male lead.

Singing and stage presence promise to be the highlight of the show, as both leading actors sing and perform regularly for Harvard’s a capella groups. Brondfield is a member of the Din and Tonics, and Rachel C. Porter ’07, who plays Maria, is a member of the Callbacks. “I’ve been in choirs for a really long time and I’m in the Callbacks so I perform a lot and I sing a lot,” says Porter, “but I had never done a play before.”

Taking on the intense subject matter was also a challenge for the cast, but Porter adds that they were able to “go back and forth in and out of that [serious] mindset. We’ll be joking around [on the set] and then rehearsing a scene in the second act which is very serious. It’s interesting to see how people [respond].”

Whether one has seen Bernstein’s famed original or not, the Cabot House production of “West Side Story” hopes to strike a chord with its audience. Mostly unfamiliar with the show before rehearsals began, Brondfield has grown to be a “fan of [the music],” and hopes the audience will feel the same way.

—Staff writer Jessica A. Berger can be reached at jaberger@fas.harvard.edu.