By

Eleanor Cade Busby

Fri, 08/8/2025 - 11.13 am

Production photos by Jared Morneau

Maine State Music Theatre closes its 2025 mainstage season with a production that doesn’t just revisit a classic, it reclaims it. West Side Story, the groundbreaking Broadway musical, blazes across the stage at Pickard Theater from August 6–23, and it's not here to comfort, it’s here to confront.

This soul-stirring, unflinching production rips the lid off social wounds that still throb with relevance: racism, systemic disconnection, and the danger of walls both visible and invisible.

Set in 1950s New York City, the tragic love story of Tony and Maria—caught between rival gangs, the Jets and the Sharks is no longer distant history. MSMT's production proves just how close we still are to that concrete jungle of fear and fractured identity. The themes are not only intact here, they’re electrified. The backdrop may be mid-century urban decay, but the themes are present: racial tension, disconnection, and the corrosive effects of prejudice. Chilling truth echoes through every note, every stomp, every stolen glance.

Director and choreographer Marc Robin brings a bold, kinetic energy to the production. When words fail, bodies speak - through dance, grief erupts, rage simmers, and hope dares to leap. . Robin’s choreography doesn’t just dazzle, it speaks. Here, dance becomes a language of grief, rage, and resistance. Longing curls through outstretched fingers. When words fail, bodies scream.

Robin uses every motion, each gesture for a purpose and the seamless fight choreography was nothing short of brilliant. The dancers will leave you breathless from the opening montage to the last beat, all while furthering the story and not as an adjunct.

The cast, uniformly excellent, delivers moment after moment of high-voltage truth. Lauren Maria Medina’s Maria is luminous, aching with innocence and resolve, while Coleman Cummings’ Tony (fresh from MSMT’s Anastasia) brings a wounded sweetness to the role, making his fall all the more tragic. Maria Cristina Posada Slye’s Anita is heartrending and complex, while Yurel Echezarreta’s Bernardo is , quite simply, an electric charge of machismo and fire, with a fierce energy under every movement.

Standouts in the ensemble include Bobby Ellis as a magnetic Riff and Greta Cardoza who not only brings fire to her role as Minnie but delivers a haunting solo in the “Somewhere” dream sequence that momentarily suspends time.

The Jets and Sharks ensembles feature a mix of seasoned professionals and rising stars that infuse the stage with high-voltage energy and razor-sharp athleticism, capturing both the brutality and beauty of street life.The Jets are portrayed by Bobby Ellis as Riff, Jack Sippel as Action, Austin Nedrow as Baby John, Kevin Ivey Morrison as Big Deal, Bradley Gibbins-Klein as Diesel, Dylan Stukenberg as Gee-Tar, and Todd Turner as A-Rab. The Jet girls include Brooklyn Bronson as Graziella, Kelly Bolick as Velma, Greta Cardoza as Minnie and the “Somewhere” soloist, Payton Hines as Clarice, and Morgan Gillott as Anybodys.

The Sharks feature Anthony Quintana as Pepe, Aaron Torres as Indio, Bryan Fortunato as Luis, and Matthew Irani as Nibbles. The Shark girls include Rachel Alvarez-Robinson as Teresita, Camila Romero as Rosalia, Sabina Martin as Francisca, Erin Gonzales as Consuelo, and Stemarciae Bain as Estella.

Behind the scenes, Jacob Stebly and Caleb Middleton lead a powerful music team, giving Bernstein’s legendary score and Sondheim’s iconic lyrics the richness they demand. The production is visually stunning, with Paul Black’s set and lighting design creating a gritty dreamscape where hope tries desperately to bloom. Cody Von Ruden’s costumes, Shannon Slaton’s sound design, Kevin S. Foster II’s wig designs and Luis Garcia’s projections all work in concert to create a world that is hauntingly beautiful and perilously real.

On a purely personal note, West Side Story at MSMT is the best stage production of a classic musical this critic has ever seen on a stage in Maine. Ever.

And beneath the dazzle, the message stays sharp and clear: Before the wrecking ball, there was a love story that shook foundations.

This is a musical that doesn't blink. It doesn’t soothe. It challenges. It asks us: What happens when we fail to see each other fully? What’s lost when love becomes collateral damage?

MSMT’s West Side Story is a reckoning. A mirror. A cry for grace in a graceless world.

Don’t miss this powerhouse performance. West Side Story runs August 6–23, 2025, at the Pickard Theater on the Bowdoin College campus in Brunswick, Maine.

To ensure the best prices and avoid third-party fees, purchase tickets directly through MSMT:
www.msmt.org | 207-725-8769

Production photos by Jared Morneau

About this blog:

What’s the Buzz?

What's the Buzz? About the Author
Eleanor Cade Busby: Unpublished, Unfiltered, and Unrepentant

Eleanor Cade Busby is an unpublished award-winning writer, photographer, blogger, and chronic user of the Oxford comma. She simply adores writing about herself in the third person, and therefore considers this bio a personal highlight of her literary career.

Writing from Midcoast Maine, where the air is salty, the coffee is strong, and the opinions come with footnotes.

A preacher’s kid who made it her mission to lovingly obliterate every single stereotype about “the minister’s daughter,” Busby grew up all over New England collecting stories, theater programs, and at least three kinds of student loan debt. She attended Goddard College, the Rhode Island Conservatory of Music, and the School of Life—majoring in everything she could wedge into her skull without a crowbar.

She has had her own office (with an actual door!) and a red stapler that was not to be touched, thank you very much. She has worked in social services for decades, won both national and local awards, and was recently named a co-recipient of the PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award—along with one million of her closest friends—for being loud in the best way possible.

Busby has directed more plays than she can count, acted in more than she should probably admit, and written a few too—including some that were performed on purpose. She’s done everything in theater except hang the lights, because she has a strict “no ladders” clause in her personal safety policy.

Her work has appeared in publications ranging from earnest local weeklies to CRACKED magazine, which pretty much sums up her range. She believes if it isn’t funny or relevant, it probably belongs in a compost heap, not her blog.

Eleanor lives in Midcoast Maine with a cat who believes in early-morning blood sacrifice (hers), and she writes "What's the Buzz?" to chronicle what’s happening, what might be happening, and what absolutely should be happening, according to her and no one else.

Suggestions for topics and comments are always welcome at eleanorcadebusby@hotmail.com