Guys and Dolls

Fifteen years have passed since 'Guys and Dolls' appeared on the Music Circus stage.

After seeing director Marcia Milgrom Dodge's sparkling new production, it's hard to understand why the show stayed away so long.

This musical by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows - based on short stories by Damon Runyon, with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser - is set on the streets of New York in the 1950s, and the characters are so stereotypically delicious that we can't help falling in love with them.

These are the low-lifes, gamblers, showgirls and gangsters, and the Salvation Army-like missionaries who try to save their souls. And Dodge secured an all star cast to portray them.

Tony Award-winner Gary Beach ('The Producers') is two-bit shyster Nathan Detroit, who runs 'the oldest established floating crap game in New York.' Don't look for the image of a young Sinatra, who played the role in the 1955 film adaptation; Beach's Detroit has been in business a long time, and is a wise-cracking, take-charge guy.

Detroit has been engaged for 14 years (!) to the long-suffering Miss Adelaide (Heather Lee), a singer and dancer at The Hot Box; she's beginning to worry that they'll never get married. Lee, who played this role in the show's Broadway revival, is a gem: a bleached blonde with a Betty Rubble giggle, who dreams of settling down in a real home with Nathan.

Their duet, 'Sue Me,' is a true crowd-pleaser.

Matthew Ashford - known to daytime soap opera fans as Jack Devereaux, from 'Days of our Lives' - is the high-rolling Sky Masterson. He's in town to pick up a few bucks at the crap game, but he picks up more than he bargained for; He falls in love with a straight-laced missionary, Sarah Brown (Montego Glover), when Nathan bets that Sky can't get her to go on an overnight trip to Havana with him.

Sarah, joined by her grandfather and others in their small band of missionaries, attempts (unsuccessfully) to bring God to the people of lower Manhattan. She dreams of romance ('I'll Know') but realizes that Masterson isn't 'it.'

Glover, last seen at the Music Circus in the title role in 'Aida,' made her Broadway debut as Celie in 'The Color Purple.' She has both a beautiful voice and the ability to play physical comedy as well, as evidenced by her antics while 'under the influence' in Havana.

If Sarah's grandfather Arvide Abernathy looks familiar, it's because the role is played by Conrad John Schuck, best known for his long-running role as Sgt. Enright in TV's 'McMillan and Wife.' Schuck, boasting a lengthy Broadway and TV résumé, has a wonderful voice; he also shows Arvide's deep love for his granddaughter.

The cast also includes a wonderful assortment of gangsters who speak in that unique mix of courtly formality and tough-guy vernacular: guys such as Nicely-Nicely Johnson (E.E. Bell), who got his nickname by answering 'nicely, nicely' whenever asked how he was doing. Bell brings down the house with his rousing rendition of 'Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat.'

Will Mann stands out in the small role of Harry the Horse, particularly in the 'Crapshooters Ballet,' danced by the male chorus in the underground location Detroit has found for his game.

P.L. Brown is also notable as Big Jule, who has traveled in from Chicago for the game. Big Jule is appropriately named, as he's large and menacing, and has a voice that could comfortably sing 'Asleep in the Deep.'

Local favorite Rodger Hoopman - founder/producer/artistic director of the 33-year-old Chautauqua Playhouse - has appeared in more than 25 Music Circus productions. He pops up here as Lt. Brannigan, charged with shutting down the crap game.

The right apparel is essential to any production of 'Guys and Dolls,' and Leon Wiebers is particularly successful at creating the male characters by their costumes alone: an assortment of padded shoulders and pin stripes that say 'gangsta' before anybody even opens his mouth.

Add Sky's over-the-top blue number, and the black suit for Big Jule, and it couldn't be more perfect.

'Guys and Dolls' is a delightful show, full of witty dialogue and lots of familiar tunes. This production is certain to satisfy just about everyone.

Guys and Dolls

It’s always good when you can walk out of a theatre thinking about something you’ve seen that really excites you. That “something” came in the person of Michael R.J. Campbell, Nicely-Nicely Johnson in Davis Musical Theatre Company’s production of “Guys and Dolls.” Campbell is a talented young man with a big voice and his “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat,” combined with Michael Miiller’s energetic choreograpy was easily the high point of this production.

“Guys and Dolls,” the 1952 award-winning musical by Frank Loesser, based on the book by Abe Burrows and Jo Swerling (based on tales of Damon Runyon) is a light-hearted look at the darker side of 1940s New York, and the lovable gangsters who inhabit it.

Director Jan Isaacson has assembled a cast of remarkably strong singers. Without exception they give wonderful voice to every song. Some are better actors than others.

Steve Isaacson was born to play the lovable scoundrel Nathan Detroit, a wise-cracking wheeler-dealer who runs the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York. Detroit is faced with a problem. Lt. Brannigan (Michael Miiler) is cracking down and he can’t find a place to hold the evening’s game.

Detroit has been engaged for years to Miss Adelaide (“the famous fiancee”), a dancer at the Hotsy Totsy club. All Adelaide wants is to finally marry Nathan and live in a house “with a picket fence and bookends.” Lauren Miller is a delightful Adelaide and, second only to Campbell’s Nicely-Nicely, delivers some of the most memorable musical numbers in the show.

Brennen Cull plays Sky Masterson, a high roller who is one of Detroit's regulars. Nicole Burritt-Smith plays Sarah Brown, the dedicated Salvation Army worker who has chosen to live among the seamy characters off Times Square in an attempt to convert the sinners. A wager between Masterson and Detroit leads to an unlikely romance between Masterson and Brown.

Cull and Buritt-Smith are both newcomers to DMTC and add much vocally. If you close your eyes and listen to Burritt-Smith, you might think you were listening to a young Shirley Jones. It’s a delicious, clear sound. Cull has a strong baritone and he comes alive whenever he sings. Unfortunately, there is little chemistry between the two characters, which makes their passion unbelievable and gives little energy to most of their scenes.

Returning for a second time as Arvide Abernathy, grandfather to Sarah, Bob Eggert’s touching “More I Cannot Wish You” displayed an unexpectedly strong voice.

Others in the cast include Mike McElroy as Benny Southstreeet; Ryan Adame as Rusty Charlie, ; Ben Bruening as Harry the Horse; Heather Sheridan as General Cartwright and Michael Jones as Big Jule.

Dancing is sometimes one of the weak points in community theatre productions, whose members are often stronger actors than dancers. However, Michael Miiller does wonders with DMTC casts. He has created such tight dance numbers in this production that it’s difficult to tell who in the cast has dance training and who does not. Whether a small ensemble for Hotsy Totsy club performances or full cast living it up in Havana, each dance number is a gem.

Jean Henderson has done her usual competent job in the costume department, especially in the colorful ensemble for the Havana scene. However, perhaps her most striking visual is for the Hot Box dancers in “Take Back Your Mink.”

One tiny quibble – in a production where such attention has obviously been made to period, in costume and set design (by Jennifer Walley), it was surprising in the opening number to see a photographer holding a camera as if he were looking at the LCD screen of a digital camera, rather than through the eyepiece of a film camera. Disconcerting and distracting for an amateur photographer to watch.

Guys and Dolls has a number of familiar tunes (“I’ll Know,” “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” “If I were a Bell,” “Luck Be a Lady” as well as the title song). It would be surprising if the audience did not emerge humming one of them at the end of the evening.

The production runs through March 28th at the Varsity Theatre.

How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

After watching the opening moments of Davis Musical Theatre's current production, "How to Succeed in Business without really trying," one might think a touring Broadway show had slipped into the Varsity theatre unannounced. David Holmes' performance as J. Pierrepont Finch, the ambitious window washer who climbs the corporate ladder to the top of the World Wide Wicket Company is that good. He is matched by an equally strong performance from Andrea St. Clair (who is also the show's choreographer) as Rosemary Pilkington, the woman who sets her cap for him.

It is only when the curtains part to reveal the modest set that one remembers that this is community theatre. Over the years, DMTC has given us some amazingly good productions and some not so good. "How to Succeed" is among the best.

Director Steve Isaacson and choreographer St. Clair have crafted a show which is sprightly and crisp and assembled a cast which does it justice. It would be untruthful to say that every performer delivers a professional quality performance--this is community theatre after all. But there are enough top notch performances that one forgives the less professional. The amazing thing is that Isaacson has wrung some of the best performances out of his less professional actors that I have seen since reviewing DMTC.

"How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" is written by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert, with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, based on the Pulitzer prize winning self-help book of the same name by Shepherd Mead. This is not a musical with tunes you've heard all your life, but still songs like "I Believe in You" and "Brotherhood of Man" may be familiar to some.

The show is set in the 1960s, years before the phrase "sexual harassment" would enter the common vocabulary, and so it must be viewed in its historical context. "Leave your political correctness at the door," director Isaacson warns, but there is little offensive in this humorous look at big business of the day, other than a little leering at the secretaries, a situation which is handled nicely by a reminder that "A Secretary is not a toy."

As Finch begins to make use of his self-help manual, he finds ways of manipulating just about everyone. He convinces Human Relations director Ben Bruening that he has a personal relationship with the CEO, J.B. Biggley (Arthur Vassar), and Bruening agrees to give him a job in the mail room. (The reliable Bruening delivers a solid performance--and his diction is impeccable.)

In the mail room, Finch meets Bud Frump (Tony Kelly), the slimy nephew of Biggley and a firm believer in nepotism. Kelly is marvelously smarmy as the creep you love to hate, but he is no match for the clever Finch.

Finch finds a way to get on the good side of Miss Jones, Biggley's prim and proper secretary, who discovers that she really has a wild side. The indomitable jazz-singing, skat singing Lenore Sebastian is a knockout in a rare supporting role.

What would a big business story be without a femme fatale? Lauren Miller, as Hedy LaRue, fills the bill nicely. Miller, in her second performance with DMTC, is tall and beautiful and knows how to wear stilleto heels.

A wonderful find for the company is Megan Rose Garcia, as Smitty Rosemary's sidekick who is helping her win the hand of the oblivious Finch.

Gil Sebastian is deliciously funny in the dual roles of the retiring mailroom supervisor Twimble and the Chairman of the Board, Wally Womper.

Once again, the confines of the Varsity theatre leave little room for more than utilitarian sets, but Isaacson has made the most of what he has to work with. Of particular note is the on-stage elevator, through which just about every entrance is made, even into and out of the men's bathroom. ("If you have an elevator, use it," he says) The marvelous thing about the elevator is that it worked every time...it's the sort of thing that is ripe for timing accidents, but there was nary a one.

Jean Henderson's costumes appropriately suggest office atmosphere, and she's had some fun with things like Smitty's opening act pink business suit and the vamp attire for Hedy.

St. Clair's snazzy choreography is irresistible. It will at the very least set your toes tapping, if you don't exit the theatre waving your arms in the air in the manner of a last act finale.

"How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" is a real winner for Davis Musical Theatre Co.