Jerome Robbins directed West Side Story 1961 alongside Robert Wise and also choreographed, however was actually fired from the production after the principal photography was done, but when the movie got ten academy awards he ended up winning himself two, West Side Story itself is actually loosely based off the premise of Romeo and Juliet, replacing the rival families with opposing gangs in the mid 1950s, the Jets and the Sharks, and also a ‘forbidden love’, because of the social issues it highlights it’s actually a turning point for American musical theatre. The original broadway production actually ran for 732 performances until it went on tour, and Jerome Robbins directed and choreographed it in 1957 before it went on to be nominated for six Tony Awards the same year.