September 11, 1997

Tucson Weekly

TUCSON IS RIDING a wave of splashy musical theatre, with two Broadway-style musicals launched in back-to-back weekends.

West Side Story, the second show mounted by the new Victory Productions, opens Thursday night at the TCC Music Hall, with a cast of 39, a 26-piece orchestra composed of many musicians moonlighting from the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, and a conductor who's an old hand with the Tucson Boys Chorus.

Two UA grads play the principal roles of Maria and Tony in the contemporary Romeo and Juliet tale, graced by the music of Leonard Bernstein. Carrie Mineck, a local professional often seen at Gaslight, will also bring her opera training to the part of Maria; Stephen McLeod, a veteran of the now-defunct Southern Arizona Light Opera Company, portrays Tony. The leads are backed by a quartet of Los Angeles actors, including Shane Kirkpatrick as Jets member Riff. Kirkpatrick played Joseph in Victory's inaugural production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat last spring.

The director, New Yorker Dennis Courtney, and Kirkpatrick co-choreographed the dances. The movements will resonate with the show's original choreography by the legendary Jerome Robbins, says co-producer Yvette Arata, but there's also a brand-new "ballet scene that's not in the movie...It's a young, energetic show," performed by a youthful cast. The chorus is drawn largely from local college and high school students. Victory, Arata says, is a local organization whose shows are meant to fill the musical-theatre gap left by the loss of SALOC. (Curtain goes up on West Side Story at 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, at the TCC Music Hall. Tickets are $20 general, $18 for seniors and kids under 12. They're available at the TCC box office, 791-4836, and all Dillard's outlets.)