Insights A Study Guide to the Utah Shakespeare Festival Guys and Dolls The articles in this study guide are not meant to mirror or interpret any productions at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. They are meant, instead, to be an educational jumping-off point to understanding and enjoying the plays (in any production at any theatre) a bit more thoroughly. Therefore the stories of the plays and the interpretative articles (and even characters, at times) may differ dramatically from what is ultimately produced on the Festival’s stages. The Study Guide is published by the Utah Shakespeare Festival, 351 West Center Street; Cedar City, UT 84720. Bruce C. Lee, communications director and editor; Phil Hermansen, art director. Copyright © 2017, Utah Shakespeare Festival. Please feel free to download and print The Study Guide, as long as you do not remove any identifying mark of the Utah Shakespeare Festival. For more information about Festival education programs: Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street Cedar City, Utah 84720 435-586-7880 www.bard.org. Cover photo: Quinn Mattfeld (left) as Nathan Detroit and Brian Vaughn as Sky Masterson in the Utah Shakespeare Festival’s 2017 production of Guys and Dolls. Contents Information on the Play SynopsisGuys and Dolls 4 Characters 5 About the Playwrights 6 Scholarly Articles on the Play The Rarest King of Broadway Gold 9 Utah Shakespeare Festival 3 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Synopsis: Guys and Dolls New York City’s Times Square is a busy scene where three gamblers—Benny Southstreet, Nicely-Nicely Johnson, and Rusty Charlie—sing about their horseracing bets. Sergeant Sarah Brown and the band from Save-a-Soul Mission enter playing a hymn. Sarah delivers a street sermon and invites all sinners to visit the mission and repent before it is too late. Nathan Detroit, another gambler, is having difficulty finding a location for his notori- ous floating craps game, which police Lieutenant Brannigan is always on the lookout for. Nathan mentions that he has found a place that might work, but he needs $1,000 to secure it. But Nathan is so broke he doesn’t even have money to buy an engagement anniversary present for Miss Adelaide, his fiancée of fourteen years who doesn’t approve of his gambling activities. Word has it that high roller Sky Masterson is in town. Nathan knows Sky will bet on almost anything, so he comes up with a way to trick Sky out of the $1,000 for the game. Sky enters and, suspecting Nathan is up to something, refuses the bet. Instead he tells Nathan that Miss Adelaide is the one with the upper hand and has trapped him into mar- rying her. When Nathan asks why he is traveling on to Havana alone, Sky says he could get any woman he wanted to go with him. Nathan bets him $1,000 that he can pick a woman that Sky can’t convince to go. Just then he points to Sarah Brown as the Mission Band comes by. Sky takes him up on the bet and Nathan works to secure the location for the craps game. After a night of preaching on the street, Sarah goes back to Save-a-Soul Mission when Sky enters and eagerly presents himself as a sinner. He impresses her with his knowledge of the Bible (from years of living in hotels where Gideon Bibles were handy). He notes the absence of sinners in the mission and offers her his marker, an IOU promising twelve sin- ners for the mission, if she agrees to have dinner with him at his favorite restaurant—in Havana. Insulted, she throws his marker in the trash and asks him to leave. He accuses her of hating men, which she denies and they sing about how they’ll know when the right per- son comes along. Caught up in the moment, they kiss, and then, appalled, Sarah slaps Sky. After her performance at the Hot Box nightclub, Miss Adelaide tells Nathan that they can finally get married because she is getting a raise. Nathan comes up with more reasons not to get married. When one of Adelaide’s chorus girlfriends complains that her date can- celled because of the craps game, Nathan rushes off, and Adelaide starts one of her chronic sneezing attacks that she blames on being engaged for fourteen years. At the mission, General Cartwright announces to Sarah that they will be closing the mission due to not attracting enough sinners. Just then Sky retrieves his marker from the trash and gives it back to Sarah who in turn guarantees the general that she will have twelve sinners the following evening. Sarah and Sky fly to Havana for dinner. When she orders a milkshake, Sky translates it to the waiter as a “dulce de leche,” an alcoholic drink. Sarah loves the flavor, has a few too many, and gets herself into a barroom brawl. Before leaving Havana, Sky and Sarah express their newfound feelings for each other. When they return home, they discover the gamblers have been holding their craps game in the mission since Nathan could not get the $1,000 from Sky. Sarah is furious and is con- vinced that their trip to Havana was simply part of the scheme for the craps game. Adelaide, 4 Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 too, is upset that Nathan is still running the game and breaks things off with him. Sky tells Sarah that he still intends to honor his IOU for sinners. The rest of the craps game ends up in taking place in the sewer. Sky takes on Big Julie, a gangster-type who has taken over the game. Sky proposes a bet with one throw of the dice that he’ll either pay each gambler $1,000 or they all must accompany him to a prayer meet- ing that night. Who will luck favor? And what are Sarah and Adelaide going to do about these gam- blers, their feelings for them, and their futures together? Somehow, this fun musical pro- vides the perfect venue for these guys and dolls to figure it all out. The Characters: Guys and Dolls Nathan Detroit: A gambler, con-man, and long-time fiancé of Miss Adelaide, Nathan is continuously trying to find a location for his illegal, but notorious, craps game. Sarah Brown: Evangelist Sergeant missionary, Sarah Brown is a leader at Broadway’s Save-a-Soul Mission. Sky Masterson: A high-rolling gambler, Sky accepts a bet from Nathan that he can get any girl of Nathan’s choosing to go on a date with him to Havana, Cuba. Miss Adelaide: A Hot Box Club performer, Miss Adelaide is the long-time, and long suffering, fiancée of Nathan Detroit. Arvide Abernathy: Sarah’s grandfather, Arvide is part of the Save-a-Soul Mission band. General Matilda Cartwright: Head of the Save-a-Soul Mission. Rusty Charlie: A gambler Nicely-Nicely Johnson: A gambler Benny Southstreet: A gambler Harry the Horse: A gambler Angie the Ox: A gambler Big Julie: A tough gangster from Chicago Lieutenant Brannigan: A policeman, Lieutenant Brannigan is always on the lookout for Nathan’s floating craps game. Ensemble Utah Shakespeare Festival 5 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 About the Playwrights: Guys and Dolls By Rachelle Hughes Like any wildly successful musical, it took a talented team of artists to create the musi- cal Guys and Dolls. With music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, this collaboration of a story of gangsters, gamblers, and missionaries in New York City became a Broadway and film success. Frank Loesser Frank Loesser was a Broadway and Hollywood music phenomenon. Born June 29, 1910 into a musical New York household, Loesser wrote his first song “May Party” at age six. He would go on to write over 700 songs in his lifetime and become the musical dar- ling of Hollywood and Broadway during the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s. Although his father was a well-known pianist and piano teacher and his older half-brother a celebrated concert pianist and music critic, Loesser refused classical musical training under his family’s tutelage. His musical passion was pop, and he taught himself how to play the harmonica and piano in his teens. He was the musical black sheep of his family. After dropping out of college he turned to non-musical pursuits first to support himself. He spent time as an advertising salesman, as a process server, and as city editor of a newspaper. Eventually his experience with writing led him to write sketches, songs, and radio scripts. In 1931, Loesser teamed up with future composer and Juilliard president, William Schuman, to write his first published lyric “In Love with a Memory of You.” In the mid- 1930s he continued to build his musical resume by singing and playing piano in nightclubs and writing lyrics for music by Irving Actman. Their collaboration and contribution to the very short lived Broadway show The Illustrator’s Show helped Frank land a Hollywood con- tract with Universal and then Paramount. Loesser would go on to write the score for over sixty films over three decades. When World War II broke out, Loesser was assigned to Special Services where he wrote lyrics for camp shows with composers such as Harold Rome and Alex North. During his wartime pursuits, he would compose the music and write the lyrics to his wartime hit “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.” He seemed to have a soft spot for his Special Service days.