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'Guys and Dolls' tunes up

The classic musical arrives at Stage West next week and remains through Nov. 19.

By BARBARA L. FREDRICKSEN
Published October 27, 2006

What's the old saying, "Anything worth doing is worth doing again"?

That must be how Frank Cataldo feels about the character Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, Frank Loesser's and Abe Burrows' Broadway classic.

In 2004, Cataldo won the role - and did a fine job of it - in the Richey Suncoast Theatre production of the 1950 favorite. Now he's back on stage as the suave gambler, this time for Stage West Community Playhouse in Spring Hill.

The musical opens Thursday and continues weekends through Nov. 19.

Set in writer Damon Runyon's mid 20th century Broadway, it's the tale of tinhorn gamblers, the dancing dolls who love them, and the earnest, pure-at-heart Salvation Army types who try to reform them all.

Sky bets his gambling buddy Nathan Detroit (George Dwyer, Poirot in Black Coffee) that he can use his charms to lure the straight-laced Sister Sarah Brown (Sarah Coit, Sharon in Finian's Rainbow), of the Save-a-Soul Mission, to an overnight tryst in Cuba.

Meanwhile, Nathan has his own female challenge: avoiding a wedding date with the lead dancer at the Hot Box Club, Miss Adelaide (Leslee Starz, Sheila in A Chorus Line), to whom he has been engaged for 14 years.

As bait, Sky promises Sister Sarah that he will fill the pews of her faltering mission house to keep it from being closed by her boss, Gen. Cartwright (Cheryl Roberts, Essie in You Can't Take It With You).

The show features the classic tunes If I Were a Bell, Luck Be a Lady and the high-energy Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat, sung by gambler Nicely-Nicely Johnson (Allen Voorhees). There's also the saucy semistrip number, Take Back Your Mink, and the comical Adelaide's Lament, in which Adelaide blames her cold on her much-too-long engagement.

[Last modified October 26, 2006, 22:16:14]