Scene from LALO’s production of ‘Guys and Dolls’. Photo by Larry Gibbons

By LAURIE TOMLINSON
AND ANN MAUZY

With new dates and a new venue, it’s “on with the show” for the Los Alamos Light Opera (LALO) production of “Guys and Dolls.”

The Crossroads Bible Church hosts the actors, dancers, orchestra and New York setting of “Guys an Dolls” for four performances, Thursday through Saturday, March 22-24.

A year ago people involved in Los Alamos theater, as well as interested audience members, chose this show from a list that met the criteria: uplifting, family-friendly, and having a large cast, full orchestra and great music. Laurie Tomlinson stepped up to direct the show. Gretchen Amstutz joined her as the musical director, and Brooke Davis signed on as choreographer.

Hailed as the “perfect musical comedy,” this Tony award-winning classic, with book by Abe Burrows and Jo Swerling and music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, gambles with luck, love and redemption under the bright lights of Broadway. The show opens in Damon Runyon’s mythical New York City, with gamblers, chorus girls, street vendors, tourists, con artists and other assorted saints and sinners of Gotham City.

In this oddball romantic comedy, Jeff Favorite plays big-time gambler Nathan Detroit, who is trying to find the cash and the perfect place for the biggest floating crap game in town, as the authorities breathe down his neck. Meanwhile, his girlfriend Adelaide, a nightclub performer played by Elisa Enriquez, laments that they’ve been engaged for 14 years!

Nathan tries to secure the bankroll for his game from fellow gambler Sky Masterson, played by Bear Schact. Nathan bets that Sky can’t convince the straight-laced, but lovely missionary, Sara Brown, to join him on a dinner date to Havana, Cuba. Joy Reynolds plays Sarah, who knows what she wants, and it’s not a gambler! Jim Sicilian, who played Nathan in LALO’s 1980 production of the show, plays Sarah’s grandfather Arvide. Spoiler alert: the nightclub scenes of New York and Havana provide the perfect settings for romance, while nightclub girls and Latin-style dancers entertain the audience.

Love and marriage for these gamblers and their dolls is a game of chance throughout, assisted and thwarted by an ensemble of missionaries with their onstage band, chorus girls, good-natured thugs and a persistent police detective. Nathan’s sidekicks include Patrick MacDonald as Nicely-Nicely Johnson, Scott Johnson as Benny Southstreet, Darryl Garcia as Rusty Charlie, and a gang of singing, dancing craps shooters. Ian Foti-Landis plays gangster “Big Jule,” and Larry Gibbons plays his sidekick “Harry the Horse.”

Los Alamos Light Opera, presenting major musical productions for over seven decades, is pleased to present “Guys and Dolls” at 7:30 p.m., (with a matinee at 2 p.m., Saturday) Thursday, Friday and Saturday, March 22, 23 and 24 at the Crossroads Bible Church.

Producer Cindy Hines has placed tickets, $15 for general admission and $12 for students and seniors, at CB FOX, online at Brown Paper Tickets and at the door.

Because of the failure of the Duane Smith Auditorium to open, LALO’s rescheduled show conflicts with both Los Alamos Little Theatre and the High School Olions productions. Make it a theater weekend and see all three!

LALT presents “Secondary Cause of Death” Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. this weekend. The Olions present “The Putnam County Spelling Bee” at the LAHS Blackbox at 7 p.m Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday this weekend.