THE HEADMASTER
ARTHUR LAURENTS
The venerable Broadway legend, who wrote the book for Gypsy and West Side Story as well as the screenplays for Rope and The Way We Were, has never been able to bite his tongue about anything, including his homosexuality. Openly gay since the 1950s, he was with his partner, actor and model Tom Hatcher, for 52 years until Hatcher’s death in the fall of 2006.
And so it was Hatcher, probably the only person to stand by the famously wrathful Laurents for his entire career, who compelled the 91-year-old to reinvent and restage this year’s Broadway box office record-breaker, West Side Story, which continues to gross over $1 million per week. After discovering a WSS script with Hatcher’s notations in the margins, suggestions that included the production’s most notable change—having the Hispanic gang actually speak Spanish—Laurents remounted the show, though he says switching “I Feel Pretty” to “Siento Hermosa” is not the most important adjustment he made. “The original was about dancing and singing,” he says. “This West Side Story is about what it was always meant to be about but wasn’t. This one is all about love.”
