Nicholas Hytner to Direct Immersive GUYS AND DOLLS In London

The classic Broadway musical Guys & Dolls is set to be revived in London next year in an immersive production from Tony and Olivier Award-winning director, Nicholas Hytner.

According to Baz Bamigboye at Deadline, the production will play at The Bridge Theatre and will allow 420 members of a 900 person audience to mix and mingle with the show's cast.

The immersive production is set to begin preview performances on February 27, 2023 with an official opening night on March 9.

Hytner told Deadline of the production, "The audience will arrive to see our stage resembling Times Square. Then they'll follow the story through the Save-a-Soul Mission and the Hat Box Club. The standing audience members are moving and partying with the action and they are the cheapest tickets. They get participation and spectacle. I imagine that bar-hopping in Havana in the early 1950s is something that we'd all like to do," adding, "The 600 or so people sitting are just as close to the action. And they get the benefit of watching the crowd who are part of the spectacle."

The show will feature set design by Tony-nominee Bunny Christie, choreography by Arlene Phillips and James Cousins who is also associate director, lighting by Paule Constable, sound design by Paul Arditti, musical direction by Tom Brady with orchestrations by Tony-nominee Charlie Rosen.

Casting is already underway.

According to Hytner, the creative team have no plans to alter the show's material. He told Baz, "Some of its sexual politics might feel like it's 70 years old but there's a way of dealing with that in the way you act it. You can say a line with a certain degree of ironic distance and you're 99 percent of the way there."

Packed with such classic hits as "Fugue for Tinhorns," "A Bushel and a Peck," "Adelaide's Lament," "I'll Know," "Guys and Dolls," "More I Cannot Wish You," "Luck Be A Lady," and "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat," Guys and Dolls features music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows.

Based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure," two short stories by Damon Runyon, it also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, most notably "Pick the Winner."

The musical comedy was first produced on Broadway at the 46th Street Theatre, opening on November 24, 1950. It was directed by George S. Kaufman and starred Robert Alda, Sam Levene, Isabel Bigley and Vivian Blaine. The musical enjoyed an initial run of 1,201 performances, winning five 1951 Tony Awards including Best Musical.

A movie version ofGUYS AND DOLLS was released in 1953 starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra.