The Brandywiners Close GUYS AND DOLLS, 8/7

The Brandywiners present GUYS AND DOLLS at the Longwood Gardens Open Air Theatre in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania on July 29, 30, 31 and August 5, 6, 7, 2010 @ 8:30 p.m.

Tickets for the 2010 production of Guys and Dolls include admission to Longwood Gardens beginning at 9 a.m. on the day of performance, plus a spectacular fountain display immediately following the show.

Tickets:
$25 for adults
$20 for youth (17 and under)
$20 group rate (25 or more) for Thursday and Friday nights only
$2 processing fee per ticket

To order online: Visit www.brandywiners.org.
To order by phone: Call the Ticket Office at 302-478-3355 or 800-338-6965

About the Show

(Adapted from www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/albm39.html)

Based on Damon Runyon's short story "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown," Guys and Dolls revolves around Nathan Detroit, the organizer of the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York, who bets fellow gambler Sky Masterson that he can't make the next girl he sees fall in love with him. The next girl he sees happens to be Miss Sarah Brown, a pure-at-heart Salvation Army-type reformer, and the stage is set for an hilarious evening of complications.

Producers Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin originally envisioned the musical as a serious romantic story along the lines of South Pacific. After hiring composer and lyricist Frank Loesser, they eventually went through 11 librettists before finally deciding to make the project a comedy and settling on Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, a radio and television writer with no theatrical experience.
Credits

Music and Lyrics by Frank Loesser. Book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. Original staging by George S. Kaufman.

Guys and Dolls opened at the 46th Street Theatre on November 24, 1950, and enjoyed a run of 1,200 performances-the fifth longest-running Broadway musical of the 1950s. The original cast included Robert Alda, Vivian Blaine, Sam Levene and Isabel Bigley. The 1955 film version featured Marlon Brando, Vivian Blaine, Frank Sinatra and Jean Simmons. In 1976, a Broadway revival was staged with an all-black cast.
Synopsis

(Adapted from www.theatrehistory.com/american/musical003.html)

The curtain rises on Broadway-the restless movement of its varied personalities and its feverish atmosphere beautifully captured in George S. Kaufman's direction. Three gamblers - Nicely-Nicely, Benny and Rusty Charlie-are soon found pouring over the day's racing form in a studied effort to pick the day's winners ("Fugue for Tinhorns"). Near by is the Save-a-Soul Mission of the Salvation Army, directed by Arvide Abernathy ("Follow the Fold"). Here Sky Masterson, a happy-go-lucky sort of fellow, meets the Salvation Army lass, Sarah Brown. He finds her fair game for his romantic sport. But Sarah tells him in no uncertain terms that he is not her kind of man, and that when such a man comes along she will know ("I'll Know").

At the Hot Spot night-club, chorus girls are going through one of their routines ("A Bushel and a Peck"). One of these entertainers, Adelaide, laments that she is addicted to psychosomatic colds ("Adelaide's Lament")...the cause...Nathan Detroit. She has been keeping company with him for fourteen years. But since he is a chronic gambler, there is always some game of chance to come between them just as they are about to get married. At that very moment, Nathan is involved in trying to find a place to house a floating crap game for some high players just come to town; and so, once again matrimony is farthest from his mind. His fellow gamblers, Nicely-Nicely and Benny, sympathize with him, for they have only contempt for anybody who allows himself to get deeply involved with a girl ("Guys and Dolls").

Meanwhile, Sky Masterson is pursuing Sarah. Stimulated by a bet, he decides to invite her to Havana. Her better judgment notwithstanding, Sarah goes off with Sky. In Havana she comes face to face with the glaring truth that she has fallen in love with him ("If I Were a Bell"). For his part, Sky has also come to realize that his game has become deadly serious; that he, too, was knee-deep in love ("I've Never Been in Love Before").

But after they return to Broadway, Sarah discovers that not love, but a bet, had been Sky's motive in taking her to Havana. She refuses to have anything more to do with him. Her troubles are compounded with the news that the Mission is in danger of closing down because not enough people take advantage of its services. With Sky's help, the Mission is saved: with his wide circle of friends on and near Broadway he can see to it that the Mission is crowded. Sarah's romantic interest in him is thereby revived. Her love affair with Sky achieves a happy resolution in marriage; and so, at long last, does that of Nathan and Adelaide.

Romance, however, is incidental in Guys and Dolls to the colorful picture provided of New York life, to the insight into the strange impulses and unique motivations governing the lives of some of the city's more picturesque characters.

Guys and Dolls remains one of America's favorite musicals, "depicting a world populated by a motley crew of eccentrics, non-conformists, Salvation Army do-gooders, and just plain irresponsibles: gamblers, night-club entertainers, and the like. It is this world, and these people, that are found in Guys and Dolls, a musical comedy originally described in the program as a 'fable of Broadway.'"

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