GUYS AND DOLLS at Stages St. Louis Theater Review

(L-R) Sam Harvey as Sky Masterson and Matthew Schatz as Nathan Detroit in Stages’ “Guys and Dolls.” Photo credit: Phillp Hamer Photography. Courtesy of Stages St. Louis

– By Cate Marquis –

Stages St. Louis’s “Guys and Dolls” goes classic with one of the most tuneful of musicals, as well as one of the most fun.

Stages St. Louis production of this great classic musical is outstanding and delightful. With great memorable songs and a playful plot, “Guys and Dolls” debuted on Broadway in 1950 but the show was based on Damon Runyon’s humorous short stories set in 1920s New York. Runyon’s stories are peppered with colorful New York characters and Prohibition Era types like bookies, gamblers, hustlers and other small-time crooks with creative nicknames, all speaking snappy patter in Runyon’s signature gangster dialect. With a sterling cast, the Stages show brings back the best of the best type of musicals, when songs were tuneful and hum-able, and had snappy lyrics like “a flat that would flatten the Taj Mahal,” thanks to lyrics and music by the incomparable Frank Loesser, and with a book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows.

The characters in Runyon’s stories speak a distinctive kind of English, with formal grammar and no contractions but peppered with slang. It is the kind of language and patter we hear gangsters speak in old movies. Runyon’s stories are set in New York near Broadway in the 1920s but the musical debuted on Broadway in the 1950s. Stages sets its wonderful production in a fantasy New York, one that has one foot in each of those decades. It seems to work.

The show opens with a string of colorful characters in New York street scene, and then a trio of guys gathered outside a newsstand, trying to pick a horse to bet on in the next race. Nicely-Nicely Johnson (Tamar Greene) , Benny Southstreet (Wesley J. Barnes), and Rusty Charlie (Reagan Pender) sing the catchy “Fugue for Tinhorns,” with lyrics like “I’ve got the horse right here, named Paul Revere,” until the members of a Salvation Army-style storefront mission, led by pretty young Sarah Brown (Lindsay Roberts Greene) and her mentor and relative Arvide Abernathy (John Flack), march by, singing “Follow the Fold.” Nicely-Nicely stays behind as the other drift away, waiting for his boss, Nathan Detroit (Matthew Schatz), a snappily-dressed charmer who runs the “The Oldest Established” floating crap game in New York.

Minutes in and we already have three great songs, and have begun to build a world of colorful characters.

But Nathan has a problem: the cops, led by Lieutenant Brannigan (Steve Isom), are cracking down and Nathan can’t find a spot for this week’s craps game. With some high rollers in town, especially Chicago-based gangster Big Jule (Zoe Vonder Haar), who is expected a game no matter what, Nathan feels the pressure and things are tense. Big Jule has a fearsome reputation and the consequences for displeasing Big Jule can be…big.

Another problem for Nathan is his fiancee Miss Adelaide (Katerina Papacostas), a blonde lead singer at a nightclub, who is getting restless about their relationship, after 14 years of being engaged. She also believes what Nathan has told her about giving up the gambling business.

The first problem is foremost on Nathan’s mind. The usual spots are spooked by the police or being watched. The only place he might be able to use for the game is a garage, but there is a problem: the owner wants $1000 for just one night. Nathan doesn’t have the cash but he hits on a solution, when another high-roller, Sky Masterson (Sam Harvey), rolls into town. Sky has a reputation for being lucky and for being willing to take crazy bets. He also has a reputation with the ladies. Sky planning a quick overnight trip, flying to Cuba, a popular entertainment spot in the 1920s, before returning to New York. Nathan bets Sky $1000 that the handsome gambler can’t get a certain girl, which Nathan will name, to go with him to Cuba. Confident about his skill with women, Sky scoffs and takes the bet. Nathan names the girl: the missionary Sarah Brown.

That gotcha sets everything in motion for this fun, funny and romantic conundrum plot, with that bet at the center of a lot of what happens, like a linchpin that if pulled could bring everything down. Nathan and Sky are the main characters, both working through the puzzles they must solve, and both have their romantic challenges.

This Stages production and director James Monroe Iglehart lean into the comic far more than the gangster side with this delightful show, including casting tiny Zoe Vonder Haar to play the scary Big Jule. Vonder Haar pulls it off brilliantly, with a deep, booming voice and magnetic stage presence.

This show is a top-notch production. The staging and costumes are first-rate, colorful and straddling that two-decade world, and direction is good as well, moving this along just right in this two-act musical with one intermission. But what really makes this “Guys and Dolls” soar is the casting.

As Nathan Detroit, Matthew Schatz is delightful, charming and funny, quick and clever as he handles Sky Masterson, Big Jule and the other big gamblers, resourceful and confident with his employees, and surprisingly sweet with Adelaide. Sam Harvey’s Sky is confident and full of swagger, and sure that he can charm his way into getting Sarah to agree to a date in Cuba. It does not go as smoothly as Sky hopes, and the more time he spends with her, the more she works on his heart. Lindsay Roberts Greene is confident and determined as Sarah Brown, and more set on her own goals, to bring sinners into the mission, than Sky expects, especially for special event on Thursday, which will be attended by the mission’s top leader General Cartwright (Pamela Reckamp)

Sky’s slow progress puts pressure on Nathan, who needs to get the spot for the game set, with Matthew Schatz squirming amusingly under that pressure, especially with scary Big Jule.

The leads are great but the shows real magic is often in the wonderful supporting roles. A big standout is Zoe Vonder Haar as the menacing Big Jule. Vonder Haar is a tiny older woman, but her big voice and swagger to spare make the character convincingly threatening, and all the more funny, in this perfect bit of casting. Another surprising break-out is Katerina Papacostas as Miss Adelaide, a character usually played as classic dumb blonde, even dimmer than most of the type, for comic relief. Here, Papacostas gives that a new slant, with a knowing undercurrent, making her more a character playing dumb that actually dumb. It gives the character both an unexpected depth, a strength and a kind of sweetness towards Nathan.

The singing voices are good too, and of course, it helps that this show has so many great songs. Sky sings one of the show’s big numbers, when the craps game finally gets started, rolling the dice for a critical win as he sings “Luck Be A Lady Tonight,” with Harvey belting it out just right. Tamar Greene’s Nicely-Nicely Johnson is extra nice, again with a knowing undercurrent that deepens the character. He really knocks it out with his featured number “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat” in the storefront mission. Papacostas delights as Miss Adelaide singing her nightclub numbers, silly “A Bushel and a Peck” and winking “Take Back Your Mink,” and the psychosomatic sneezing tune “Adelaide’s Lament.”

There are so many good songs in this show, that one is tempted to name them all, but we’ll stop with the one featuring the show’s title, “Guys and Dolls,” the one with that great Taj Mahal line, sung rousingly by Tamar Greene’s Nicely-Nicely, Wesley J. Barnes’ Benny Southstreet and Reagan Pender’s Rusty Charlie, and then reprised by the whole cast to close the show.

This “Guys and Dolls” is great fun, and a step above the many other musicals you find in St. Louis. If you only go to one musical this summer, this one would be a wonderful choice, a musical so fun and with such great music that it can’t fail to delight, and is sure to please even if musicals aren’t your favorite type of theater.

Stages St. Louis’ “Guys and Dolls” is on stage at the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center through Aug. 23, 2026.

© Cate Marquis