Great Show
Rating: 5
Guys & Dolls
Leawood Stage Company
Chris McCoy is theatre gold. He knows how to pick a cast that works together well, and chooses his leads wisely. Vanessa Harper and Sara Blakesly are fantastic as Adelaide and Sarah Brown, respectively. Both ladies fit their roles beautifully and have show-stopper tunes ("Adelaide's Lament" and "If I Were a Bell"). They have put their all into this production and it shows.
Their gentleman counterparts, Craig Boyd (Nathan Detroit) and David Martin (Sky Masterson), carry off excellent performances themselves. Craig is quite believable as the rough man trying to be smooth, and David plays the suave Sky (a comically apt nomer for the six-and-a-half foot tall Martin) with finesse. I'd like to hear Martin work on using his legitimate voice rather than relying on a character voice in some of his music.
Harper and Martin are a bit young-looking for their parts (both should ideally be in their early to mid thirties), but these two still manage to carry off the roles with grace.
The chorus is well-voiced and the singing from backstage on Gary Stang's "More I Cannot Wish You" is a lovely addition. Gary's voice is beautifully suited to the song.
Reed Uthe as Benny Southstreet and Ray Zarr as Nicely Nicely provide some dandy comic relief. Reed's background in comedy improv is evident in a few asides, especially the amusingly ad-libbed answer to Nathan's question "Do you know what day it is?" which changes every performance.
Chris McCoy knows how to direct a musical, and his choreography is quite interesting and complex while still being accessible to a community chorus to perform.
The young ladies of the Hotbox are delightful to watch and just perfectly charming girls. The crapshooters are a fun and lively bunch, and the mix of chorus as street scene background for a couple of numbers is highly amusing but yet just sedate enough not to completely upstage the main performers. "Havana" is a cross between a dance number and a well-choreographed fight scene which goes off rather well. Leawood is graced with many very fine dancers, most notably Tracie Davis of City in Motion Dance Theater whose grace and elegance just classes up the stage every time she steps foot on it.
You wouldn't think a burlesque-esque striptease belongs in a family show, but it's handled elegantly as a performance, not a prurient come-on, which makes all the difference, especially considering that some of the young ladies in the show are still high schoolers.
The Statue of Liberty's cameo appearance (played by veteran opera singer Amy Dobek) is a nice capper to "Oldest Established." She plays a solid General Cartwright with a nicely improvised descant line on "Rockin' the Boat," a la the Broadway revival.
Mike Saxton does a nicely schmoozy Rusty Charlie and should get himself to a good voice teacher to capitalize on the nice raw instrument he has.
Costumes are wonderful with the single exception of Adelaide's pink prom dress which unfortunately hangs on Harper's lush figure like a potato sack. Thankfully it doesn't stay on her for long!
Overall, Todd Burd's music direction seems to have struck a solid chord. The one sour note belongs to one of the brass instruments - trumpet, I think - which consistently hit wrong notes throughout the evening. This far into the performances I'd think that would have been addressed, but clearly it wasn't. Thankfully, while glaring, the off-notes were not enough to keep me from enjoying the otherwise fine performance.
Guys and Dolls is really a terrific show with a great cast and I'm glad I had the chance to review it!
read the review at KC Stage
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