There’s room for a love story on the crowded dance floor of Riverside City College Musical Theatre’s West Side Story, even if there’s hardly room for the Jets and Sharks to get along. Brenda Jill Castro’s choreography gives the rival gangs a chance to show off, while Carter Friedhof and Lilianna Zavala make it easy to believe that, for Tony and Maria at least, the most interesting thing happening at the gym is each other. Jacob Carty’s moody lighting brings those different scales together beautifully at the Landis Performing Arts Center, where a neighborhood rivalry can feel as intimate as a night out with someone new.

Castro’s choreography is especially good in “Cool,” a number that asks a group of boys spoiling for a fight to settle down. El Friedhof’s Riff has his hands full, and part of the pleasure of the number is seeing just how much energy it takes for the Jets to exercise a little restraint. Their ability to move together is impressive. What gives the dancing its edge is the growing suspicion that getting these guys to act as a group is considerably easier than getting them to go home.

Riff could use some help from Tony, his best friend and the guy who helped him start the Jets. Real-life brothers El and Carter Friedhof bring an easy familiarity to the exchange when Riff tries to talk Tony into coming to the dance. El plays Riff as a young man eager to get out from under his friend’s shadow, which makes it all the more endearing that he still wants Tony to come along. He may be ready to lead the Jets on his own, but he’d like his buddy there.

As Tony, Carter has just the right amount of lost puppy in him. He falls for Maria with such earnestness that what could easily have come across as cheesy feels entirely believable. Zavala brings a little more caution to Maria without losing any of the excitement of falling in love. She’s every bit as taken with Tony as he is with her, but she has a clearer sense of what it might cost them. Much of their chemistry comes from how well Friedhof and Zavala let those feelings coexist. Tony is already sold on a future together while Maria is still figuring out how they might get there.

Carty’s lighting gives that uncertainty room to build throughout the show, particularly as the story moves into its more intense second act. At intermission, director Jodi Julian and Castro described the lighting as some of the moodiest they’ve used. Julian later said she wanted it “to evoke the feeling that we get in a movie theater.” That preference for shadows serves the production well. There’s beauty in the shifts from dark to light, and an uneasiness that lingers even when Tony and Maria have reason to be hopeful.

One of the hardest things West Side Story asks of any of its characters is the favor Maria asks of Anita. Andrea Villarreal plays Anita, Bernardo’s girlfriend, who agrees to carry a message for Maria despite what it costs her to do so. By the time she walks into Doc’s drugstore, the audience understands just how much it took to get her through the door. The Jets who confront her know almost nothing about why she’s there. They see a Puerto Rican woman alone.

During a discussion after the show, Villarreal was asked how she approaches that scene knowing she has to perform it again. She said she thinks about how often people look away from the kind of violence Anita faces. “Just because you’re turning your head and trying not to look in that direction doesn’t mean that the problem goes away,” Villarreal said. “It’s still here.” There’s a particular discomfort in recognizing these as the same boys who were such a pleasure to watch in “Cool.” Villarreal holds the audience’s attention on what it feels like to be alone with them.

Dylan Johnston, who plays A-Rab, said the actors playing the Jets were asked to find “a type of masculinity that you would be ashamed of.” He pointed to the gang’s racism, the way the boys talk about women and what they’re willing to do to them. “We are not good people at all,” Johnston said. “We are probably the villains of the story.”

The actors playing the Sharks had their own questions about who these kids were before the two gangs ever crossed paths. During the post-show discussion, one cast member described getting together with others at the Plaza to work out how old their characters were when they left Puerto Rico, who came with them and who might have known each other back home. They worked out those histories even for characters who never get a name. That care for the people around Tony and Maria is part of what makes RCC’s production so affecting. The two leads make a future together seem possible in the space of a dance. The ensemble gives them a neighborhood full of people they’d have to leave behind.

Riverside City College Musical Theatre’s West Side Story runs Nov. 5–8 at the Landis Performing Arts Center in Riverside.