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Nostalgia for New York
The ever-popular musical Guys and Dolls, first staged 51 years ago, is a look at gamblers and do-gooders who lived in a New York City of long ago.
By BARBARA L. FREDRICKSEN
© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 4, 2001
Nearly everyone over a certain age has seen either the movie or the stage version of Frank Loesser and Abe Burrows' breezy musical Guys and Dolls.
Even so, the musical, which opens Friday for a six-week run at the Show Palace Dinner Theatre in Hudson, remains popular.
It's easy to see why.
Based on a Damon Runyon short story, the 51-year-old show is a sweet and nostalgic look at the tin-horn gamblers and big-hearted do-gooders who live and love in a New York City of times long past.
Precisely the kind of show people are wanting to see right now.
The Show Palace's 22-member cast is led by Equity actors Laura Anne Hodos as Sister Sarah Brown, the beautiful and innocent Salvation Army missionary in charge of a rundown Broadway mission, and David Kelley as Sky Masterson, the cynical and swaggering gambler who sets out to seduce her in order to win a $1,000 bet.
Sky's bet is with Nathan Detroit (Show Palace veteran Tom Bengston), the organizer of the oldest established floating craps game in New York. Nathan's life is complicated by his girlfriend, Miss Adelaide (Antonia Nozicka, another Palace veteran), the lead dancer at the Hot Box Club, who is pushing Nathan to get married after a 14-year engagement.
The show is filled with classic tunes -- A Bushel and a Peck, If I Were a Bell, I've Never Been in Love Before and Luck Be a Lady -- and unforgettable scenes: Miss Adelaide and her chorus girls at the Hot Box Club turning a coy Take Back Your Mink into a rousing, high-kicking strip tease; gambler Nicely-Nicely Johnson (Eric Scalise) doing a sudden spiritual conversion as he admonishes his pals to Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat; and Adelaide's psychosomatic sniffling through Adelaide's Lament, to name a few.
Hodos was recently seen in TeleVisions at the Jaeb Theatre of Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Before that, she performed at EPCOT, Disney/MGM Studios and the Mark Two Dinner Theatre in Orlando, Radio City Music Hall, Lincoln Center and the Don't Tell Mama Cabaret in New York City.
Kelley is also a Disney/MGM Studios performer and has appeared in several feature films, most recently with Timothy Dalton in American Outlaws.
PREVIEW
Guys and Dolls, at Show Palace Dinner Theatre, 16128 U.S. 19, Hudson, Friday through Nov. 11. Matinees Wed., Thurs., Sat. and Sun.; evenings Fri. and Sat. and Oct. 10 and 11. Dinner and show, $35.95; show only $24.95; ages 12 and younger $19.95 and $14.95. Call (727) 863-7949 or toll-free 1-888-655-7469.
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