What you may not know is the unique way this musical came to the stage. Guthrie Theater Dramaturg Carla Steen shines a light on how short stories by a newspaper columnist inspired the show-stopping musical still being produced nearly 70 years later.
Following the blog post, check out our staff-recommended reading list inspired by Guys and Dolls. The names of Cy Feuer and Ernest H. Runyon was a newspaper columnist and sportswriter who had, beginning in the s, created a popular series of short stories chronicling the lives of fictional characters who populated Times Square and Broadway. In dozens of stories and with a distinctive comic voice, Runyon wrote about the gamblers, dancers, safecrackers, pickpockets, coppers and other denizens of what became known as Runyonland.
Runyon had passed away in , so they contacted his estate to secure the rights. Not unsurprisingly, the estate agent asked which story they wanted to adapt, as many of them had already been optioned for movies. They agreed to an unusual contract that would allow them to name the specific story later.
They promptly called Loesser, who agreed to do the project in action if not in words. One day he hands us four songs, and now we knew he was doing it! They realized the story needed an early significant bet to establish the stakes.
There was just one problem: He had never written a Broadway show. Feuer and Martin convinced him that taking on a high-risk challenge was perfectly fitting for a story about gamblers. It was directed by playwright, George S. The production ran for 1, performances. The New York City Center also mounted limited engagements of the musical in , and In , it enjoyed its first Broadway revival; a reimagining of the show with an all-black cast.
It featured new musical arrangements in the style of Motown and was under the supervision of book writer, Abe Burrows. It ran from July 21, , to February 13, The musical has received a significant amount of play in England. In , there was a major revival at the National Theatre with brassier orchestrations and larger-scale dance numbers. To ask other readers questions about Guys and Dolls , please sign up. Is this a clean book could a young teen read this?
Kryptonian Fletch Yes, very clean. There are 'undertones' but you have to be "in the know" to spot them. For instance 'The Hot Box' could be a simple night club or coul …more Yes, very clean. For instance 'The Hot Box' could be a simple night club or could be a strip club, but you would have to read-between-the-lines and know what you are looking for to get this.
See 1 question about Guys and Dolls…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Guys and Dolls. Jul 27, Brian rated it really liked it. Like Shakespeare, the more of it you read, the more use to it you become.
All of the stories were written between and The collection is very humorous, I laughed out loud often while reading it. This was due mainly to the fact that Runyon is the king of understatement. It is a major component of his writing style, as every story in this collection of 32 has more than a few examples of it.
The characters are reprobates; the worse society has to offer. However, they are so colorful and good with words that you forget that and have to remind yourself to observe their actions and what they do. By and large they are not good people. There are actually very violent and disturbing aspects to many of these stories. The dark elements in this book almost slip by you and the reader must remind themselves from time to time that many of the actions depicted are despicable.
I read a few stories in the collection at a time, put the book down, read something else, and then picked it back up again for a few more stories until I had completed it.
It keeps it from getting tiresome reading it in that manner. Jan 07, Jim Vuksic rated it liked it. There are only three authors whose anthology of short stories I ever really enjoyed and recommended that others read. Henry , Ray Bradbury, and Damon Runyon.
Henry wrote about children, the poor, and the good in almost everyone. Bradbury wrote science fiction, and Runyon wrote about the Broadway of the Roaring Twenties and Gangster era of the nineteen thirties; most famously recounted in the thirty-two short-stories that make up the anthology, "Guys There are only three authors whose anthology of short stories I ever really enjoyed and recommended that others read.
Bradbury wrote science fiction, and Runyon wrote about the Broadway of the Roaring Twenties and Gangster era of the nineteen thirties; most famously recounted in the thirty-two short-stories that make up the anthology, "Guys and Dolls".
What fascinated me most about "Guys and Dolls" was the author's uncanny ability to bring a unique era in a place that very few people ever experienced so vividly to life that the reader soon finds himself totally immersed in the everyday dealings of characters with weird names like Regret, Nathan Detroit, Big Nig, Sky Masterson, and Little Miss Marker; just to name a very few.
Those who have never bothered to read the book because they have already seen the play or movie should rethink their decision; because they were based soley upon just one of the thirty-two stories. The unique local dialect, so cleverly and hilariously mimicked by Mr. Runyon in almost every word of dialogue, is so catchy that my youngest daughter drove me crazy for several weeks after she read "Guys and Dolls", because she insisted upon using the slang and vocabulary in her everyday speech - and extremely well, I must admit.
Aug 07, Robert rated it it was amazing Shelves: xseason. Classic short stories from the dimmer corners unexplored in the technicolor Broadway version. It got to the point where I started tawking like some of da citizens what occupied the pages just for fun.
Henry or Twain though the author thinks of himself more of a Bret Harte. Based on these alone this would be a five star review. It is the "other writings" where I became a bit disappointed. We also get some humorous poetry, a few unconnected very short stories of varying quality and a bit of prose on beds, gamblers and the sufferings of Job. Jan 29, Greg Kerestan rated it it was amazing.
It's kind of a shame that, good as the musical "Guys and Dolls" is, it's more or less taken Damon Runyon's entire place in the public memory to itself. Runyon's short story anthology of the same name is a minor masterpiece of style over substance. The plots are almost negligible- little character sketches, often farcical in nature, about low-level gangsters, high-level hoods, would-be pimps, players and gamblers in Prohibition-era New York, mostly trying to win a girl's heart or make a quick buc It's kind of a shame that, good as the musical "Guys and Dolls" is, it's more or less taken Damon Runyon's entire place in the public memory to itself.
The plots are almost negligible- little character sketches, often farcical in nature, about low-level gangsters, high-level hoods, would-be pimps, players and gamblers in Prohibition-era New York, mostly trying to win a girl's heart or make a quick buck at the races. What sets Runyon apart, and makes you keep reading after the initial novelty has worn off, is the unique, Runyonesque writing style.
Written like a semi-literate mobster with delusions of grandeur, these first-person narratives tend to unroll in constant first person, no contractions, never using one word when three roundabout words will do. It's a style instantly recognizable from almost a century of homage and parody, and nobody does it better than Runyon.
This is a decent selection of twenty of Runyon's Broadway stories and would serve as a good introduction to one of the truly great comic writers of the 20th Century.
I first read some Runyon about 35 years ago and after a page or two of him was completely hooked. It's a joy throughout with very neatly constructed short stories, memorable characters and, above all, writing which can make me laugh out loud just through its style.
If you need a sample of Runyon's wonderful, utterly distinctive pros This is a decent selection of twenty of Runyon's Broadway stories and would serve as a good introduction to one of the truly great comic writers of the 20th Century.
If you need a sample of Runyon's wonderful, utterly distinctive prose, try this paragraph from the classic The Brain Goes Home: "I once read a story about a guy by the name of King Solomon who lives a long time ago and who has a thousand dolls all at once, which is going in for dolls on a very large scale indeed, but I guarantee that all of King Solomon's dolls put together are not as expensive as any one of The Brain's dolls. The overhead on Doris Clare alone will drive an ordinary guy daffy, and Doris is practically frugal compared to Cynthia Harris and Bobby Baker.
For a much fuller selection, my advice is to get hold of a copy of the Picador paperback, On Broadway. It's out of print scandalously, in my view but used copies are still readily available.
Very warmly recommended. If you are one of those people who loves reading about Prohibition-era New York, you will find the "Broadway Stories" highly amusing. Yes, the plots are completely ridiculous, but I doubt they were meant to be taken seriously.
They are more like cynical fairy tales in which the endings are sometimes grim. Most of the career criminals which populate the stories are portrayed as the good guys in contrast to police and bankers ; although in some instances the narrator merely feigns goodwill toward If you are one of those people who loves reading about Prohibition-era New York, you will find the "Broadway Stories" highly amusing.
Most of the career criminals which populate the stories are portrayed as the good guys in contrast to police and bankers ; although in some instances the narrator merely feigns goodwill toward Harry the Horse and Little Isadore from the Brooklyn waterfront who have a reputation as killers because to offend them might be injurious to his health. The result is he gets dragged along on some hair-brained odyssey which lasts until morning the next day.
I actually wanted more, and it turns out not everything is here such as "Palm Beach Santa," which is mentioned in the afterword, but not in the book.
Most of the locales and speakeasies named are based on real places Lindy's, The Club so you do get the effect of hanging out with these characters day after day. Also included in this volume are some odds and ends including one hilarious story featuring The Turps, a husband and wife from Brooklyn the prototypes for Archie and Edith Bunker , who barge into the White House, demanding the President reinstate their local mailman who loses his job after 30 years.
Then there are some others which predate Runyon's move to New York and are a little bit rough around the edges. What makes them worth reading is they deal with subjects like the Colorado mining strike of Of course Runyon was close to both Rothstein and Capone. To prove that Capone had plenty of money, Federal Prosecutors detail every single item he bought, right down to his silk underwear.
Hence, Runyon views him more as a victim than a gang chieftain. His outrage against the big banks is apparent in his coverage of a Senate investigation of the Morgan Investment Bank the purpose of which was to determine its role in the crash of This took a turn for the surreal when J. Morgan acted amused though he was clearly not because he could not afford to look like an elitist snob.
His top ax man, George Whitney had no such reservations. May 31, Rosemary rated it it was amazing. I went to a top-notch production of Guys and Dolls last week and the artistic director of the theater said the most appalling thing: that most of the people in the audience had probably never heard of Damon Runyon. Oh, tis enough to make a doll despair, or at least develop a cold. This is one of the great masters of American humor and I'll stake him in a crap game against Mark Twain any time.
Apr 23, Sue Barbosa rated it really liked it. Jun 17, Punk rated it liked it Shelves: short-stories. Short Stories. After you read two or three of these, you know exactly what to expect from the rest of them.
You start out with your unnamed narrator, who either gets invited along on a caper or sits next to a guy who has a story to tell him. The plots are simplistic, like Encyclopedia Brown meets Henry O; you can see the twist coming every time, but these stories are mostly about the langu Short Stories. The plots are simplistic, like Encyclopedia Brown meets Henry O; you can see the twist coming every time, but these stories are mostly about the language.
The writing is jaunty, full of s slang and dry wit, often with sly little reversals at the end of a sentence. Kind of like Wodehouse or Hemingway, but with gangsters. And boy are there gangsters. For the most part these are bloodless, lighthearted stories, but people do die -- generally because they had it coming -- though these aren't morality tales. Whatever heroes you get are just as crooked as the people they're killing, but Runyon makes it work.
You want your con man to win. Usually, at least; there are a few missteps, and women and children are often left with the short end of the stick.
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