When Theatre Harrisburg first took a gamble on performing “Guys and Dolls” in 1956, 1959, 1976, and 1998, someone must have left their marker, promising to revive the classic for their 100th season in 2025.
Calling Damon Runyon’s 12-time Tony Award-winning musical romantic comedy “a vibrant love letter to New York City,” Director Brian Massey immerses audiences into a striking sensory experience about chasing a forbidden floating craps game and making a bet on love. Theatre Harrisburg’s cast of dozens fills the stage with dazzlingly colorful costumes (Sarah Murphy), over-the-top dialogue, and choreography (Lauren Kutz) that’s a mash-up of ballet, soft-shoe, and flash mob. The production is pure camp, with a storyline that only seems realistic if you run with high-rolling, professional gamblers. Even co-writer Abe Burrows (with Jo Swerling) encouraged us to “Just take a big belly laugh.” It’s nothing serious.
The best part of this play is the musical score (Frank Loesser), rolling along as beautifully as dice on a felted green table, with someone yelling, “Seven!” Without reading the program, I wouldn’t have guessed that both the vocal director (Ellen Ditmer) and the pit conductor Bill Perbetsky) are making their Theatre Harrisburg debuts. Over half the cast are also undetectably new or new-ish to Theatre Harrisburg.
Even with the play’s simple plot and mostly thin characters, there’s a robust amount of action onstage. Here are the standouts from Theatre Harrisburg’s “Guys and Dolls” scratch sheet.
Leading man Sky Masterson (Patrick Connaghan) delivered my favorite song of the show, “Luck Be a Lady” with all the high-stakes intensity of a man trying to save everyone’s souls (including his own) during a floating crap game held in a sewer. In Connaghan’s warm tenor, it’s half a prayer to God and the other half pleading with Lady Luck.
Through musical storytelling, Sky Masterson couples with Sarah Brown (Olivia Kane), producing wholesome onstage chemistry as he wears down her defenses. Of all their duets, I most liked “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” with Connaghan and Kane connecting brilliantly as their characters fall in love. Kane’s solo “If I Were a Bell” hits all the right notes for me, with her character’s uptight façade melted somewhere in her spiked coconut half-shell in drunken Havana, her hair literally and figuratively down. Brown is priggish, so she slaps Masterson, adding to their heat. (Their performance inspired me to go home and slap my husband, too.)
My plus-one was particularly taken with Miss Adelaide (Marisa Keener), a kewpie doll caricature come to life. While singing in Betty Boop’s voice, Keener’s “Adelaide’s Lament” and “Adelaide’s Second Lament” is just downright impressive, becoming the songs my plus-one left the theater humming. Backed by the Hotbox Girls (Marjia Sagan, Emma Riethmiller, Alison Mirani, Kaitlyn Ball, Kaitlyn Bellizia and Lauren Kutz), all exhibiting a sexy brand of confidence, Keener sang the recognizable “A Bushel and a Peck” in Burlesque style, and “Take Back Your Mink” stripteasers.
In Keener’s rousing duet-slash-spat with the excitable Nathan Detroit (Ozzy Smith) in “Sue Me,” she amped up the tempo and the tension, and Smith landed on his knees numerous times to croon smoothly, trying to slow her down. In the penultimate number, Keener and Kane sang the funny duet “Marry the Man Today,” which inspired me to go home and punch my husband (right after the slap from before).
Although the Nicely-Nicely Johnson (Jay Falgo) character is not as developed as the others, Falgo’s vocal stylings are. The rousing “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat” is one of my favorite story-telling songs of the score, complete with coordinated chair-dancing as he fires up his congregation like a Pentecostal pastor. Falgo’s vocal timbre blends well with Benny Southstreet (Caleb Steindel) for the strong-finishing duet “Guys and Dolls,” and they add Rusty Charlie (Brad Leer) in “Fugue for Tinhorns” to sing round-style. Arvide Abernathy (Tom Blaisse) another minor character, showcases his suave, yet paternal vocals in the sentimental ballad “More I Cannot Wish You.”
In the recently trending tradition of resiliency, the ensemble cast pulls together to ensure the choreography must go on. One cast member had to step out of the chorus line due to an injury the day before opening night. With that substitution and re-shuffling the lineup, many dancers were learning brand-new blocking and routines on the fly. In Theatre Harrisburg’s culture of cohesion, I have no doubt that by the end of the run, the entire cast will be most confident in stepping to their new positions, in completing their dance moves with arms fully extended, and kicking their legs up with the highest energy.
Even though the characters in Runyonland, NYC live in a flashy, seedy semi-underworld of a city perceived to be sinful, “Guys and Dolls” is a family show with probably one or two PG-13-ish scenes at the Hotbox. Bring your favorite plus-one, even if you have to roll them for it, or take them to a prayer meeting first.
“Guys and Dolls” runs through Nov. 23 at Whitaker Center for Science and Arts, 222 Market St., Harrisburg. For show times and tickets, visit https://theatreharrisburg.com/guys-and-dolls/.
