In the canon of American musical theater, “West Side Story,” utterly groundbreaking in its time, remains close to perfection. And the opportunity to see a truly excellent production, such as the one currently running at Hope Summer Repertory Theatre, should not be missed.

Over the past 25 years, much has changed in Grand Rapids. New buildings and businesses, new art and new ideas are emerging at every corner of the city. Even longstanding institutions have been shaped by the changing times.

If you walked into a library for the first time recently, it might not have been what you were expecting. These aren’t your grandma’s libraries anymore.

Grand Haven native Libby VanderPloeg praises her Grand Rapids Community College experience and offers this bit of wisdom when it comes to making it in a creative field: “Don’t wait for work to come to you. Opportunity awaits those who seek it out! And if you want to get better at what you do, do it every single day.”

In a world of immediacy and information overload, it’s easy to lose sight of the time and talent that goes into the stories we see and read every day.

If you go to the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts this month, you might see a familiar name or two.

This summer, teens at the Grand Rapids Civic Theatre are taking the lead in putting on two very different, but equally challenging productions.

An interactive exhibit at the Lakeshore Museum Center in Muskegon is highlighting all the parts of a theater that make a production happen, especially the “backstage” roles like lighting, costuming and set design.

In the second act of Grammy- and multiple Tony-award winning Broadway musical “In The Heights” (the show that launched Lin-Manuel Miranda, star creator of “Hamilton”) the Spanish word “alabanza” is introduced as a song.

Having the ability to look back on adolescence — because somehow we survived it — can be a tremendous joy, though one we may avoid to save us from reliving utterly cringe-worthy moments we’d prefer to forget.