34^th Festival Season - 2012

GUYS AND DOLLS

A Musical Fable of Broadway
Based on a Story and Characters of Damon Runyon

Music and Lyrics by Frank Loesser

Book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows

ACT I: Surrounded by Broadway's seedy street life, horse players Nicely-Nicely Johnson, Benny Southstreet, and Rusty Charlie look over the day's scratch sheet. They are interrupted by a mission band, led by Sarah Brown, who, denouncing those who wallow in the sin of cards, horses, and dice, invites all to her Save-A-Soul Mission. Gambler Nathan Detroit, always trying to set up a crap game out of the sight of Police Lieutenant Brannigan, laments his financial woes - he cannot even buy a present for chanteuse Adelaide on the 14th anniversary of their engagement. Nathan, desperate for cash so that he can rent a space for his crap game, makes a bet with high-rolling Sky Masterson that Sky cannot persuade Sarah to accompany him to Havana the next day. Posing as a repentant sinner, Sky visits the mission and tries coaxing Sarah into a next-day dinner in Cuba. She refuses, but gradually softens and takes quite a while to slap him after he kisses her. At the Hot Box Nightclub where she performs, Adelaide tries to entice Nathan into marriage. When she learns that he has reneged on his promise to give up gambling, she becomes furious and lapses into the psychosomatic cold that she has endured for the past 14 years. Mission director General Cartwright tells Sarah that, because of lack of attendance, the mission must be closed. Sky intervenes and guarantees that there will be a dozen sinners at the next meeting - the General is overjoyed. Crapshooters, gathered for the big game, diffuse Brannigan's suspicions by telling him that they are merely celebrating Nathan's upcoming marriage. Adelaide overhears, and Nathan now has no choice but to agree. He becomes distraught, however, when the mission band passes by ... without Sarah. Sightseeing in Havana, Sarah and Sky stop for a milkshake, whose rum flavoring leaves Sarah tipsy and jealous of a Cuban dancer's advances on Sky. A brawl breaks out. Back in New York, Sarah and Sky discover that Nathan and his cohorts have been shooting craps in the mission. Sarah, thinking that she has been set up, walks out on Sky.

ACT II: Told that Nathan is off visiting a sick aunt, Adalaide, knowing after all these years what that means, lapses into her sneezing and sniffling. Arvide, Sarah's grandfather and fellow mission worker, tells her that if she loves Sky she should follow her heart and not worry about what he is. Sky, well aware of the promise he had made Sarah, catches up with a big crap game in the sewers and proposes his own game: for each throw he wins, the loser must show up at the mission meeting. One by one the losers emerge from the sewer and head to the mission, where they give testimony, none more colorful than that of Nicely-Nicely. Brannigan arrives, inquiring about the alleged crap game in the mission; Sarah denies ever seeing the assembled sinners before. Sarah and Adelaide meet on the street and convince themselves that they really do love their men - what are they waiting for?