GUYS AND DOLLS Plays the Segal Centre, 9/30-10/28

The Segal Centre for Performing Arts will inaugurate its 2012-2013 theatre season with the Tony Award winning musical Guys and Dolls. For her debut musical at the Segal Centre, Diana Leblanc directs this lavish production starring Scott Wentworth as Sky Masterson. For the first time, the Segal Centre will be offering French supertitles for one of its English Theatre productions on select performances. Presented on the Segal mainstage from September 30th to October 28th, 2012, including an extended preview period.

A Comedy of Morals in the City That Never Sleeps
Set in the gritty streets of 1940s New York, where Broadway is a playground for the city’s biggest hustlers and sinners, Guys and Dolls tells the converging stories of big city rascal Nathan Detroit and notorious high-roller Sky Masterson. With all of the hottest gamblers in town, Nathan Detroit is desperate to raise some cash to keep his infamous floating craps game going. Despite pressure from the local police and disapproval from longtime fiancée Miss Adelaide, Detroit bets playboy Sky Masterson a thousand dollars that he will not succeed in taking Sister Sarah Brown on a date to Havana. To one up Detroit, Sky promises the pious Miss Brown and her crumbling Save-a-Soul Mission a dozen repenting sinners. With her superior threatening to close down the mission, Sarah is forced to accept and an unlikely romance blossoms. All bets are off in this sexy comedy of immorality, love and redemption, inspired by the mythical short stories of iconic American author Damon Runyon.

A Musical in Runyonland
Based on Runyon’s short story “The Idyll of Sarah Brown,” writing duo Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows bring this musical fable to life with Tony and Pulitzer award-winning songwriter Frank Loesser. Loesser’s music and lyrics accent the story with some of Broadway’s most unforgettable numbers such as “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat,” “Luck Be a Lady,” “A Bushel and a Peck” and the definitive comic show tune “Adelaide’s Lament.”

Bringing Broadway to the Segal
Under the expert direction of Diana Leblanc (Harvey, Same Time, Next Year) the ultimate Broadway classic is revived in the up-close-and-personal setting of the Segal Theatre with a stellar cast of Canada’s foremost musical theatre performers. Tony-nominated actor Scott Wentworth reincarnates the slick and charming Sky Masterson after his critically-acclaimed stint in the 2004 Stratford Festival production, accompanied by the effervescent Tracy Michailidis (Beauty and the Beast) as Sarah Brown, with the multitalented Frank Moore (The Drowsy Chaperone, Urinetown) and Susan Henley (Hairspray) as hapless gangster Nathan Detroit and frustrated showgirl Adelaide.

An Explosive 24-Person Cast!
Montreal favourites Marcel Jeannin (Inherit the Wind, Tuesdays with Morrie) and Daniel Brochu (Scientific Americans, A View From the Bridge) lend their talents to the roles of Benny Southwest and Rusty Charlie alongside local stand-up heavyweights Massimo Cannistraro and Mike Paterson (Harvey) as wise guys Big Jule and Nicely Nicely. Rounding out the lead cast are Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre veteran Sam Stein as Arvide Abernathy, Jane Gilchrist (Harvey) as General Cartwright and Glen Bowser as Lieutenant Brannigan, backed by a large ensemble of triple-threat performers and a live band on stage.

Stratford veteran Jim White returns to the Segal with his showstopping choreography after the success of Lies My Father Told Me and last season’s On Second Avenue. With musical direction by Nick Burgess, the unparalleled vision of set and costume designer Michael Eagan, combined with the lighting design by the incomparable Luc Prairie, the audience will be transported to the bright lights of Broadway and the seductive streets of tropical Havana.

“The Greatest of All American Musicals”
One of the most successful American musicals of the 20th Century, Guys and Dolls premiered on Broadway in 1950, under the direction of George S. Kaufman with choreography by the late great Michael Kidd. The original production ran for 1,200 performances, winning five Tony Awards in 1951, including Best Musical. Dubbed “the greatest of all American musicals” by Time Magazine, it has since been re-mounted to great critical acclaim around the world, most recently in London’s West End in 2005, where it received the Olivier for Outstanding Musical and once again on Broadway in 2009. Many remember it for its 1955 film adaptation starring Marlon Brando as Sky Masterson and Frank Sinatra as Nathan Detroit.

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