Guys and Dolls swings onto the stage

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May 24th, 2011

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Omaha, NE – New York gangsters, showgirls and crapshooters will take the stage at the Omaha Community Playhouse this weekend.

New York gangsters and showgirls will hit the stage at the Omaha Community Playhouse this weekend in Guys and Dolls.

Luck be a Lady, recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1965 is one of several well-known songs that made their stage debut on Broadway in 1950. Written by Frank Loesser, the songs formed the musical Guys and Dolls, a romantic tale involving gangsters, crooks, cops and drunks, based on the short stories of Damon Runyon.

The play was adapted into a film in 1955, starring Marlon Brando, along with Sinatra, Jean Simmons and Vivian Blaine. Guys and Dolls has been revived on Broadway several times over the years, and has been performed in numerous theater houses around the country. The Omaha Community Playhouse opens its third reproduction this weekend. Susan Baer Collins is the Associate Artistic Director at the Playhouse, and directed the play.

“If you’re in the theater, you kind of have assumptions that you make about this show,” she said. “And it was really fun for us to just kind of start from scratch, like maybe nobody had ever done it before. And we tried to take that attitude all the way through… to find our own way.”

Baer Collins said the crew also brought their own touches to the production, from the set and lighting to the details of each costume. James O’Thuse, the Playhouse’s resident lighting and scenic designer “has created this kind of fantasized New York City, with these amazingly colorful sets,” she said. And Georgiann Regan, the Playhouse’s costume designer, she said “has designed these very playful, lively, extremely colorful costumes that really seem to suit this world of gangsters and showgirls, and making a bet on whether you’ll fall in love.”

Guys and Dolls opens at the Omaha Community Playhouse Friday, and runs through June 26th.

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