October 17, 2022 By Roy Harris
Hingham Civic Music Theatre will present the musical comedy classic “Guys and Dolls” on two weekends--Oct. 28 and 29 and Nov. 5 and 6—two years after the pandemic first forced a cancellation of the show.
The new “Guys and Dolls” production will open at the Sanborn Auditorium stage in Hingham Town Hall, where recent rehearsals suggest that the audience can expect a rollicking song-and-dance-filled experience. The talented South Shore cast members—some of whom had expected to take the stage two years ago—are ready to shoot craps on (and under) the streets of New York, dance at the Hot Box Club, and fall in love, all to the accompaniment of a delightful Frank Loesser score.
Among the stars are Hingham’s Sara Camden Daly and Boston’s Rylan Vachon as love-struck “mission doll” Sarah Brown and high-roller Sky Masterson, and Duxbury’s Cynthia Krebs Lee and Plymouth’s Brendan Smith as Hot Box Club dancer Miss Adelaide and her gambler-boyfriend Nathan Detroit. Rockland’s Bonnie Gardner plays gambler Nicely-Nicely Johnson, while Milton’s Jim Foster and Hingham’s Sarah Dewey portray missionaries Arvide Abernathy and General Cartwright. Choreography is by HIngham’s Diana Byrne Gossard, with music direction by Plymouth’s Sarah Troxler.
From its opening “Fugue for Tin Horns,” the brilliant 1951 Tony-winning musical features a string of love songs like “I’ll Know,” “I’ve Never Been in Love Before” and “If I Were a Bell,” along with such comic hits “Adelaide’s Lament,” “A Bushel and a Peck,” and “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat.” The 75-year-old Hingham Civic Music organization previously staged “Guys and Dolls” in 1999.
Director Steve Dooner of Weymouth—a Quincy College English and theater professor who himself played Nathan Detroit in a recent Cohasset production—praises “Guys and Dolls” for its “fantasy world of comical gamblers, gangsters, showgirls and ne’er-do-wells from the underworld of New York” inspired by writer Damon Runyon. In Dooner’s vision for the show, he says he aims to draw on composer Loesser’s philosophy “that you lose or win an audience in the first five minutes of the show”—what Dooner calls “one of the best pieces of directing advice I have ever heard.” Those words have led the director to “create a show that moves with lightning speed from moment to moment,” he says.
Among other performers are Hot Box dancers Meghan Rowan of Hingham, Elle Krebs of Duxbury, Lindsy Warwick of Scituate and Jess Phaneuf of Bridgewater (who also is the show’s assistant director.) In mission scenes are Annie Daly of Hingham, Pamela Curren of Braintree, Janet Fortier of Hanover, Anne Mullaney of Kingston and Sally Jenkins of Marshfield Hills. Gamblers include Hingham’s Joel Leonard, Frank Mellen and Oisin Rowan; and Quincy’s Chris Caron, Brookline’s Andrew Haber, Marshfield’s Daniel Hannafin, and Dedham’s John Crampton.
The opening-weekend curtain rises at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 28 and 29, in Town Hall’s Sanborn Auditorium, 210 Central Street, with the starting time also at 7:30 on Saturday, Nov. 5. A closing Sunday, Nov. 6 matinee starts at 2 p.m.
General-admission tickets are $25, and $20 for seniors and students, and group pricing is also available. Tickets and additional information are at HCMT.org.
I can’t wait to see it! I especially want to see Bonnie Gardner, who played Mother Superior in “NUNSENSE”, play the part of Nicely Nicely in this show! She’s sure to be a RIOT!