February 18, 2020 submitted by Roy Harris
Hingham Civic Music Theatre is bringing “Guys and Dolls” to Town Hall’s Sanborn Auditorium in April. And director Steve Dooner has loaded the Broadway classic with South Shore actors who revere its Frank Loesser songs and Damon Runyonesque story of New York’s ‘40s-era gambling underworld.
From its opening “Fugue for Tin Horns,” the musical showcases a brilliant score combining romantic ballads like “I’ll Know, “I’ve Never Been in Love Before” and “If I Were a Bell,” with the comic “Luck Be a Lady,” “Adelaide’s Lament” and “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat.”
The show, now in rehearsals in Sanborn, will open on April 17 and 18, with two final performances April 25 and 26.
“Guys and Dolls” director Steve Dooner reads notes to cast members, including Brendan Smith, who plays gambler Anjie the Ox. (Photo by Kerry Tondorf)
Local love for “Guys and Dolls”—last produced by the 73-year-old Hingham Civic group in 1999—begins with Dooner, a veteran director and Quincy College English and Theater teacher. He himself starred in a Cohasset production four years ago as “good old reliable” Nathan Detroit, who runs a floating crap game, and is pursued by Hot Box Club performer Adelaide. A second romance, meanwhile, blossoms between gambler Sky Masterson and “mission doll” Sarah Brown. (The show may be best known to some from the 1955 movie with Frank Sinatra as Nathan and Marlon Brando as Sky.)
Hingham’s Diana Byrne Gossard is choreographer for “Guys and Dolls.” (Photo by Kerry Tondorf)
In the Hingham production, Masterson is Dorchester’s Nate Haywood, who “has played Sky three times before and has even directed the show,” Dooner notes. Sarah is Brockton’s Stephanie Wallace, while Adelaide is Norwell’s Cynthia Krebs. Nathan is Brockton’s Tony Light, a frequent HCMT performer, seen in last year’s “Sweet Charity.” Whitman’s Chris DiOrio—“a local theater legend,” in Dooner’s words—reprises in Hingham the role of gambler Nicely Nicely that he played in Cohasset in 2016, and numerous other times.
Nate Haywood plays gambler Sky Masterson in Hingham Civic Music Theatre’s production of “Guys and Dolls.” (Photo by Kerry Tondorf)
In Dooner’s vision, the show’s “Runyonland” setting “is a fantasy world of comical gamblers, gangsters, showgirls and ne’er-do-wells from the underworld of New York that make this show outrageously funny.” He also draws from composer Loesser’s philosophy of staging, “that you lose or win an audience in the first five minutes of the show.” Says Dooner, “It’s one of the best pieces of directing advice I have ever heard, and to honor that I want to create a show that moves with lightning speed from moment to moment.”
Lindsy Warwick goes through some steps as one of the Hot Box Club dancers in “Guys and Dolls.” (Photo by Kerry Tondorf)
The Hingham cast features Milton’s Jim Foster as the mission’s Brother Arvide and Hanover’s Anne Thornton as General Cartwright, with Marshfield’s Sally Jenkins and Weymouth’s Megan Pillsbury as Sisters Agatha and Martha. The show is choreographed by Hingham’s Diana Byrne Gossard, with special attention to numbers by the Hot Box dancers: Hingham’s Megg Rowan, Hull’s Leah Shiels, Plymouth’s Jess Phaneuf, Charlestown’s Lindsy Warwick, Holbrook’s Amanda Matson and Erin Burns, of Epson, N.H. Music direction is by Brockton’s Trey Lundquist, who himself played Sky in the 2016 Cohasset production.
At the first “Guys and Dolls” cast meeting actors from previous Hingham Civic shows reunite. From left are Hingham’s Roy Harris, Frank Mellen and Joel Leonard, and Marshfield’s Daniel Hannafin. (Photo by Kerry Tondorf)
Other gamblers for the April show are Hingham’s Frank Mellen and Joel Leonard (Scranton Slim and “the Greek”), Boston’s Jack Ferdman (as both Rusty Charlie and Big Jule), Quincy’s Steve Alibrandi (Benny Southstreet), Marshfield’s Daniel Hannafin (Harry the Horse), Plymouth’s Brendan Smith (Anjie the Ox) and Holbrook’s John Keets (Brandy Bottle Bates.)
Dooner, who directed Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” for Norwell’s Company Theatre last year, goes so far as to compare “Guys and Dolls” with “The Taming of the Shrew”—noting that in comic Bard fashion, Sky “makes a bet with Nathan Detroit that he can woo a ‘doll’ of impeccable virtue” in Sarah. “Along the way, the two bad guys find unexpected love and redemption, and the audience gets a whole lotta laughs.”
“Guys and Dolls” opens with 7:30 p.m. shows on Friday and Saturday, April 17 and 18, at the auditorium of Hingham Town Hall, 210 Central St. The closing weekend features a 7:30 show Saturday, April 25, and a final 2 p.m. Sunday matinee on April 26. Tickets will go on sale shortly, priced at $25, with seniors and students $20, and a group rate of $18 for 10 or more attending the same performance. Ordering details will be available soon.
Roy Harris, a Hingham writer who began appearing in Hingham Civic Music Theatre shows with 2003’s “Damn Yankees,” plays Lt. Brannigan in this “Guys and Dolls.”