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Jerome Robbins is a Director, Auteur and Choreographer American born on 11 october 1918 at New York City (USA)
Jerome Robbins (October 11, 1918 – July 29, 1998) was an American theater producer, director, and choreographer known primarily for Broadway Theater and Ballet/Dance, but who also occasionally directed films and directed/produced for television. His work ranged from classical ballet to contemporary musical theater. Among the numerous stage productions he worked on were On the Town, Peter Pan, High Button Shoes, The King And I, The Pajama Game, Bells Are Ringing, West Side Story, Gypsy: A Musical Fable, and Fiddler on the Roof. Robbins was a five time Tony Award winner and a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors. He received two Academy Awards, including the 1961 Academy Award for Best Director with Robert Wise for West Side Story. A documentary about his life and work, Something to Dance About, featuring excerpts from his journals, archival performance and rehearsal footage, and interviews with Robbins and his colleagues, premiered on PBS in 2009.
Robbins was born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz in the Jewish Maternity Hospital in the heart of Manhattan’s Lower East Side – a neighborhood populated by many immigrants. The Rabinowitz family lived in a large apartment house at 51 East 97th at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue. Known as "Jerry" to those close to him, Robbins was given a middle name that reflected his parents' patriotic enthusiasm for the then-president. Rabinowitz, however, translates to “son of a rabbi”, a name Robbins never liked, since it marked him as the son of an immigrant. So he took the name "Robbins".
In the early 1920s, the Rabinowitz family moved to Weehawken, New Jersey. His father and uncle opened the “Comfort Corset Company”. The family had many show business connections, including vaudeville performers and theater owners.
Robbins began college studying chemistry at New York University (NYU) but dropped out after a year for financial reasons, and to pursue dance. He studied at the New Dance League, learning ballet with Ella Daganova, Antony Tudor and Eugene Loring; modern dance; Spanish dancing with Helen Veola; folk dance with Yeichi Nimura; and dance composition with Bessie Schonberg.
Career
1930s and 40s
By 1939, Robbins was dancing in the chorus of such Broadway shows as Great Lady, The Straw Hat Revue, and Keep Off the Grass, which George Balanchine choreographed. Robbins was also dancing and choreographing at Camp Tamiment in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. Here he choreographed many dramatic pieces with controversial ideas about race, lynching, and war. In 1940, he turned from theater to ballet, joining Ballet Theatre (later known as American Ballet Theatre). From 1941 through 1944, Robbins was a soloist with the company, gaining notice for his Hermes in Helen of Troy, the Moor in Petrouchka, and Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet.
Challenged by the integration of dance into the drama of musicals such as Oklahoma!, Robbins choreographed and performed in Fancy Free, a ballet about sailors on liberty, at the Metropolitan Opera as part of the Ballet Theatre season in 1944. The inspiration for Fancy Free came from Paul Cadmus' 1934 painting The Fleet's In! which is part of the Sailor Trilogy. Robbins was recommended for a ballet based on the art work by his friend Mary Hunter Wolf. Distancing himself from the controversial implicit homosexuality of that depiction, Robbins said in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor, "After seeing...Fleet's In, which I inwardly rejected though it gave me the idea of doing the ballet, I watched sailors, and girls, too, all over town." He went on to say "I wanted to show that the boys in the service are healthy, vital boys: there is nothing sordid or morbid about them." Oliver Smith, set designer and collaborator on Fancy Free, knew Leonard Bernstein and eventually Robbins and Bernstein met to work on the music. This would be the first of several collaborative efforts.
Later that year, Robbins conceived and choreographed On the Town (1944), a musical partly inspired by Fancy Free, which effectively launched his Broadway career. Once again, Bernstein wrote the music and Smith designed the sets. The book and lyrics were by a team that Robbins would work with again, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. His next musical was Billion Dollar Baby (1945). He was reportedly so unpopular by this point, that the company of this show watched silently as he backed up to the orchestra pit – and fell in. Two years later, he received plaudits for his humorous Keystone Kops ballet in High Button Shoes (1947), including his first Tony Award for choreography. That same year, Robbins would become one of the first members of New York's newly formed Actors Studio, attending classes held by founding member Robert Lewis three times a week, alongside classmates such as Marlon Brando, Maureen Stapleton, Montgomery Clift, Herbert Berghof, Sidney Lumet, and about 20 others.
1950s
During this period, Robbins continued to create dances for the Ballet Theatre, alternating between musicals and ballet for the better part of the next two decades, producing each at a rate of nearly one each year. With George Balanchine, he choreographed Jones Beach at the City Center Theater in 1950, and directed and choreographed Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam, starring Ethel Merman.
In 1951, Robbins created the now-celebrated dance sequences in Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I (including the March of the Siamese Children, the ballet The Small House of Uncle Thomas, and the "Shall We Dance?" polka between the two leads). That same year, he created The Cage for the New York City Ballet, with which he was now associated. He also performed, uncredited, show doctoring on the musicals A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1951), Wish You Were Here (1952), and Wonderful Town (1953).
Robbins collaborated with George Abbott on The Pajama Game (1954), which launched the career of Shirley MacLaine, worked on the 1955 Mary Martin vehicle, Peter Pan (recreated for the small screen in 1955, 1956 and 1960), and directed and co-choreographed (with Bob Fosse) Bells Are Ringing (1956), starring Judy Holliday. In 1957, he conceived, choreographed, and directed West Side Story.
West Side Story is a contemporary version of Romeo and Juliet, set in Hell's Kitchen. The show, with music by Leonard Bernstein, marked the first collaboration between Robbins and Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics, as well as Arthur Laurents, who wrote the book. To help the young cast grow into their roles, Robbins did not allow those playing members of opposite gangs (Jets and Sharks) to mix during the rehearsal process. He also, according to dancer Linda Talcott Lee, "played psychological games" with the cast: “And he would plant rumors among one gang about the other, so they really hated each other.” Although it opened to good reviews, it was overshadowed by Meredith Willson's The Music Man at that year's Tony Awards. West Side Story did, however, earn Robbins his second Tony Award for choreography.
The streak of hits continued with Gypsy (1959), starring Ethel Merman. Robbins re-teamed with Sondheim and Laurents, and the music was by Jule Styne. The musical is based—loosely—on the life of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.
House Un-American Activities Committee
In the early 1950s, he was called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), suspected of Communist sympathies. Robbins named names of persons he said were Communists, including actors Lloyd Gough and Elliot Sullivan, dance critic Edna Ocko, Madeline Lee Gilford, filmmaker Lionel Berman and playwright Jerome Chodorov and his brother Edward Chodorov. Because he cooperated with HUAC, Robbins's career did not visibly suffer and he was not blacklisted.
1960s
Robbins directed, with Robert Wise, the highly successful 1961 movie version of West Side Story. However, he took so long with rehearsals and filming of dances that he was fired during production, though he did receive credit as co-director.
In 1962, Robbins tried his hand at a straight play, directing Arthur Kopit's unconventional Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad. The production ran over a year off-Broadway and was transferred to Broadway for a short run in 1963.
Robbins was still highly sought after as a show doctor. He took over the direction of two troubled productions during this period and helped turn them into successes. In 1962, he saved A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), a musical farce starring Zero Mostel, Jack Gilford, David Burns, and John Carradine. The production, with book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, and songs by Stephen Sondheim, was not working. Robbins staged an entirely new opening number which explained to the audience what was to follow, and the show played successfully from then on. In 1964, he took on a floundering Funny Girl and devised a show that ran 1348 performances. The musical helped turn lead Barbra Streisand into a superstar.
That same year, Robbins won Tony Awards for his direction and choreography in Fiddler on the Roof (1964). The show starred Zero Mostel as Tevye and ran for 3242 performances, setting the record (since surpassed) for longest-running Broadway show. The plot, about Jews living in Russia near the beginning of the 20th century, allowed Robbins to return to his religious roots.
1970s and 80s
He continued to choreograph and stage productions for both the Joffrey Ballet and the New York City Ballet into the 1970s. Robbins became ballet master of the New York City Ballet in 1972 and worked almost exclusively in classical dance throughout the next decade, pausing only to stage revivals of West Side Story (1980) and Fiddler on the Roof (1981). In 1981, his Chamber Dance Company toured the People's Republic of China.
The 1980s saw an increased presence on TV as NBC aired Live From Studio 8H: An Evening of Jerome Robbins' Ballets with members of the New York City Ballet, and a retrospective of Robbins's choreography aired on PBS in a 1986 installment of Dance in America. The latter led to his creating the anthology show Jerome Robbins' Broadway in 1989 which recreated the most successful production numbers from his 50-plus year career. Starring Jason Alexander as the narrator, the show included stagings of cut numbers like Irving Berlin's Mr. Monotony and well-known ones like the "Tradition" number from Fiddler on the Roof. He was awarded a fifth Tony Award for it.
1990s
Following a bicycle accident in 1990 and heart-valve surgery in 1994, in 1996 he began showing signs of a form of Parkinson's disease, and his hearing was quickly deteriorating. He nevertheless staged Les Noces for City Ballet in 1998, his last project. He suffered a stroke two months later, and died at his home in New York on July 29, 1998. On the evening of his death, the lights of Broadway were dimmed for a moment in tribute. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered into the Atlantic Ocean.
Private life
Robbins was bisexual. He had a relationship with Montgomery Clift and never married.
(1961)
(Director)
(1949)
(Idea)
Source : Wikidata
Jerome Robbins
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- Best films
- Family
- Characters
- Awards
Birth name Jerome Rabinowitz
Nationality USA
Birth 11 october 1918 at New York City (USA)
Death 29 july 1998 (at 79 years) at New York City (USA)
Awards National Medal of Arts, Academy Award for Best Director
Nationality USA
Birth 11 october 1918 at New York City (USA)
Death 29 july 1998 (at 79 years) at New York City (USA)
Awards National Medal of Arts, Academy Award for Best Director
Biography
Early yearsRobbins was born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz in the Jewish Maternity Hospital in the heart of Manhattan’s Lower East Side – a neighborhood populated by many immigrants. The Rabinowitz family lived in a large apartment house at 51 East 97th at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue. Known as "Jerry" to those close to him, Robbins was given a middle name that reflected his parents' patriotic enthusiasm for the then-president. Rabinowitz, however, translates to “son of a rabbi”, a name Robbins never liked, since it marked him as the son of an immigrant. So he took the name "Robbins".
In the early 1920s, the Rabinowitz family moved to Weehawken, New Jersey. His father and uncle opened the “Comfort Corset Company”. The family had many show business connections, including vaudeville performers and theater owners.
Robbins began college studying chemistry at New York University (NYU) but dropped out after a year for financial reasons, and to pursue dance. He studied at the New Dance League, learning ballet with Ella Daganova, Antony Tudor and Eugene Loring; modern dance; Spanish dancing with Helen Veola; folk dance with Yeichi Nimura; and dance composition with Bessie Schonberg.
Career
1930s and 40s
By 1939, Robbins was dancing in the chorus of such Broadway shows as Great Lady, The Straw Hat Revue, and Keep Off the Grass, which George Balanchine choreographed. Robbins was also dancing and choreographing at Camp Tamiment in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. Here he choreographed many dramatic pieces with controversial ideas about race, lynching, and war. In 1940, he turned from theater to ballet, joining Ballet Theatre (later known as American Ballet Theatre). From 1941 through 1944, Robbins was a soloist with the company, gaining notice for his Hermes in Helen of Troy, the Moor in Petrouchka, and Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet.
Challenged by the integration of dance into the drama of musicals such as Oklahoma!, Robbins choreographed and performed in Fancy Free, a ballet about sailors on liberty, at the Metropolitan Opera as part of the Ballet Theatre season in 1944. The inspiration for Fancy Free came from Paul Cadmus' 1934 painting The Fleet's In! which is part of the Sailor Trilogy. Robbins was recommended for a ballet based on the art work by his friend Mary Hunter Wolf. Distancing himself from the controversial implicit homosexuality of that depiction, Robbins said in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor, "After seeing...Fleet's In, which I inwardly rejected though it gave me the idea of doing the ballet, I watched sailors, and girls, too, all over town." He went on to say "I wanted to show that the boys in the service are healthy, vital boys: there is nothing sordid or morbid about them." Oliver Smith, set designer and collaborator on Fancy Free, knew Leonard Bernstein and eventually Robbins and Bernstein met to work on the music. This would be the first of several collaborative efforts.
Later that year, Robbins conceived and choreographed On the Town (1944), a musical partly inspired by Fancy Free, which effectively launched his Broadway career. Once again, Bernstein wrote the music and Smith designed the sets. The book and lyrics were by a team that Robbins would work with again, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. His next musical was Billion Dollar Baby (1945). He was reportedly so unpopular by this point, that the company of this show watched silently as he backed up to the orchestra pit – and fell in. Two years later, he received plaudits for his humorous Keystone Kops ballet in High Button Shoes (1947), including his first Tony Award for choreography. That same year, Robbins would become one of the first members of New York's newly formed Actors Studio, attending classes held by founding member Robert Lewis three times a week, alongside classmates such as Marlon Brando, Maureen Stapleton, Montgomery Clift, Herbert Berghof, Sidney Lumet, and about 20 others.
1950s
During this period, Robbins continued to create dances for the Ballet Theatre, alternating between musicals and ballet for the better part of the next two decades, producing each at a rate of nearly one each year. With George Balanchine, he choreographed Jones Beach at the City Center Theater in 1950, and directed and choreographed Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam, starring Ethel Merman.
In 1951, Robbins created the now-celebrated dance sequences in Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I (including the March of the Siamese Children, the ballet The Small House of Uncle Thomas, and the "Shall We Dance?" polka between the two leads). That same year, he created The Cage for the New York City Ballet, with which he was now associated. He also performed, uncredited, show doctoring on the musicals A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1951), Wish You Were Here (1952), and Wonderful Town (1953).
Robbins collaborated with George Abbott on The Pajama Game (1954), which launched the career of Shirley MacLaine, worked on the 1955 Mary Martin vehicle, Peter Pan (recreated for the small screen in 1955, 1956 and 1960), and directed and co-choreographed (with Bob Fosse) Bells Are Ringing (1956), starring Judy Holliday. In 1957, he conceived, choreographed, and directed West Side Story.
West Side Story is a contemporary version of Romeo and Juliet, set in Hell's Kitchen. The show, with music by Leonard Bernstein, marked the first collaboration between Robbins and Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics, as well as Arthur Laurents, who wrote the book. To help the young cast grow into their roles, Robbins did not allow those playing members of opposite gangs (Jets and Sharks) to mix during the rehearsal process. He also, according to dancer Linda Talcott Lee, "played psychological games" with the cast: “And he would plant rumors among one gang about the other, so they really hated each other.” Although it opened to good reviews, it was overshadowed by Meredith Willson's The Music Man at that year's Tony Awards. West Side Story did, however, earn Robbins his second Tony Award for choreography.
The streak of hits continued with Gypsy (1959), starring Ethel Merman. Robbins re-teamed with Sondheim and Laurents, and the music was by Jule Styne. The musical is based—loosely—on the life of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.
House Un-American Activities Committee
In the early 1950s, he was called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), suspected of Communist sympathies. Robbins named names of persons he said were Communists, including actors Lloyd Gough and Elliot Sullivan, dance critic Edna Ocko, Madeline Lee Gilford, filmmaker Lionel Berman and playwright Jerome Chodorov and his brother Edward Chodorov. Because he cooperated with HUAC, Robbins's career did not visibly suffer and he was not blacklisted.
1960s
Robbins directed, with Robert Wise, the highly successful 1961 movie version of West Side Story. However, he took so long with rehearsals and filming of dances that he was fired during production, though he did receive credit as co-director.
In 1962, Robbins tried his hand at a straight play, directing Arthur Kopit's unconventional Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad. The production ran over a year off-Broadway and was transferred to Broadway for a short run in 1963.
Robbins was still highly sought after as a show doctor. He took over the direction of two troubled productions during this period and helped turn them into successes. In 1962, he saved A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), a musical farce starring Zero Mostel, Jack Gilford, David Burns, and John Carradine. The production, with book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, and songs by Stephen Sondheim, was not working. Robbins staged an entirely new opening number which explained to the audience what was to follow, and the show played successfully from then on. In 1964, he took on a floundering Funny Girl and devised a show that ran 1348 performances. The musical helped turn lead Barbra Streisand into a superstar.
That same year, Robbins won Tony Awards for his direction and choreography in Fiddler on the Roof (1964). The show starred Zero Mostel as Tevye and ran for 3242 performances, setting the record (since surpassed) for longest-running Broadway show. The plot, about Jews living in Russia near the beginning of the 20th century, allowed Robbins to return to his religious roots.
1970s and 80s
He continued to choreograph and stage productions for both the Joffrey Ballet and the New York City Ballet into the 1970s. Robbins became ballet master of the New York City Ballet in 1972 and worked almost exclusively in classical dance throughout the next decade, pausing only to stage revivals of West Side Story (1980) and Fiddler on the Roof (1981). In 1981, his Chamber Dance Company toured the People's Republic of China.
The 1980s saw an increased presence on TV as NBC aired Live From Studio 8H: An Evening of Jerome Robbins' Ballets with members of the New York City Ballet, and a retrospective of Robbins's choreography aired on PBS in a 1986 installment of Dance in America. The latter led to his creating the anthology show Jerome Robbins' Broadway in 1989 which recreated the most successful production numbers from his 50-plus year career. Starring Jason Alexander as the narrator, the show included stagings of cut numbers like Irving Berlin's Mr. Monotony and well-known ones like the "Tradition" number from Fiddler on the Roof. He was awarded a fifth Tony Award for it.
1990s
Following a bicycle accident in 1990 and heart-valve surgery in 1994, in 1996 he began showing signs of a form of Parkinson's disease, and his hearing was quickly deteriorating. He nevertheless staged Les Noces for City Ballet in 1998, his last project. He suffered a stroke two months later, and died at his home in New York on July 29, 1998. On the evening of his death, the lights of Broadway were dimmed for a moment in tribute. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered into the Atlantic Ocean.
Private life
Robbins was bisexual. He had a relationship with Montgomery Clift and never married.
Best films
(1961)(Director)
(1949)(Idea)
Usually with
Filmography of Jerome Robbins (4 films)
Director
Add to a movie listWest Side Story (1961)
, 2h32Directed by Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Musical theatre, Musical, Crime, Romance
Themes Dance films, Films about music and musicians, Théâtre, Musical films, Romeo and Juliet, Films based on plays, Films based on musicals, Films based on works by William Shakespeare, Gangster films
Actors Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Marni Nixon, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris
Rating75%
In the West Side's Lincoln Square neighborhood in Manhattan, there is tension between an Anglo gang, the Jets, led by Riff, and a Puerto Rican gang of immigrants, the Sharks, led by Bernardo. After a brawl erupts ("Prologue"), Lieutenant Schrank and Officer Krupke arrive and break it up, warning both gangs to cease fighting or pay. Despite the warning, the Jets decide to challenge the Sharks to a rumble for neighborhood control at an upcoming dance.
Scriptwriter
West Side Story (2021)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Musical, Crime, Romance
Themes Films about music and musicians, Théâtre, Musical films, Films based on plays, Films based on musicals, Films based on works by William Shakespeare, Children's films
Actors Ansel Elgort, Rita Moreno, Corey Stoll, Brian d'Arcy James, Maddie Ziegler, Ana Isabelle
Roles Theatre Play
Rating70%
Upper West Side, années 1950. Deux bandes de jeunes s'affrontent : d'un côté les Sharks dirigés par Bernardo et de l'autre les Jets, avec Riff à leur tête. Tony, lié au Jets, va s'éprendre de Maria, la sœur de Bernardo.
West Side Story (1961)
, 2h32Directed by Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Musical theatre, Musical, Crime, Romance
Themes Dance films, Films about music and musicians, Théâtre, Musical films, Romeo and Juliet, Films based on plays, Films based on musicals, Films based on works by William Shakespeare, Gangster films
Actors Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Marni Nixon, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris
Roles Theatre Play
Rating75%
In the West Side's Lincoln Square neighborhood in Manhattan, there is tension between an Anglo gang, the Jets, led by Riff, and a Puerto Rican gang of immigrants, the Sharks, led by Bernardo. After a brawl erupts ("Prologue"), Lieutenant Schrank and Officer Krupke arrive and break it up, warning both gangs to cease fighting or pay. Despite the warning, the Jets decide to challenge the Sharks to a rumble for neighborhood control at an upcoming dance.
On the Town (1949)
, 1h38Directed by Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Musical, Romance
Themes Seafaring films, Films about music and musicians, Transport films, Films about the labor movement, Films about automobiles, Musical films, Films based on plays, Films based on musicals, United States Armed Forces in films
Actors Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Jules Munshin, Ann Miller, Betty Garrett, Judy Holliday
Roles Idea
Rating72%
As three sailors – Gabey, Chip, and Ozzie – begin their shore leave, Gabey falls in love with the picture of "Miss Turnstiles", who is actually Ivy Smith. The sailors race around New York attempting to find her in the brief period they have ("New York, New York").
Team
West Side Story (2021)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Musical, Crime, Romance
Themes Films about music and musicians, Théâtre, Musical films, Films based on plays, Films based on musicals, Films based on works by William Shakespeare, Children's films
Actors Ansel Elgort, Rita Moreno, Corey Stoll, Brian d'Arcy James, Maddie Ziegler, Ana Isabelle
Roles Choreographer
Rating70%
Upper West Side, années 1950. Deux bandes de jeunes s'affrontent : d'un côté les Sharks dirigés par Bernardo et de l'autre les Jets, avec Riff à leur tête. Tony, lié au Jets, va s'éprendre de Maria, la sœur de Bernardo.
Gypsy (1993)
, 2h33Directed by Emile Ardolino
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Biography, Comedy, Comedy-drama, Musical
Themes Musical films, Films based on plays, Films based on musicals
Actors Bette Midler, Cynthia Gibb, Peter Riegert, Edward Asnere, Elisabeth Moss, Lacey Chabert
Roles Choreographer
Rating70%
Determined to make her young, blonde, and beautiful daughter, June, a vaudeville headliner, willful, resourceful, domineering stage mother Rose Hovick will stop at nothing to achieve her goal. She drags June and her shy, awkward, and decidedly less-talented older sister, Louise, around the country in an effort to get them noticed, and with the assistance of agent Herbie Sommers, she manages to secure them bookings on the prestigious Orpheum Circuit.
West Side Story (1961)
, 2h32Directed by Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Musical theatre, Musical, Crime, Romance
Themes Dance films, Films about music and musicians, Théâtre, Musical films, Romeo and Juliet, Films based on plays, Films based on musicals, Films based on works by William Shakespeare, Gangster films
Actors Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Marni Nixon, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris
Roles Choreographer
Rating75%
In the West Side's Lincoln Square neighborhood in Manhattan, there is tension between an Anglo gang, the Jets, led by Riff, and a Puerto Rican gang of immigrants, the Sharks, led by Bernardo. After a brawl erupts ("Prologue"), Lieutenant Schrank and Officer Krupke arrive and break it up, warning both gangs to cease fighting or pay. Despite the warning, the Jets decide to challenge the Sharks to a rumble for neighborhood control at an upcoming dance.