Taken from the MTI Study Guide for "Guys and Dolls"
About Guys and Dolls
One of Broadway's most hilarious shows, Guys and Dolls has been described as the perfect musical comedy. It is based primarily on the Damon Runyon short story "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown," which describes the unlikely romance between a pure-at-heart urban missionary and a slick Broadway gambler. The show's second romantic storyline involves Nathan Detroit and Miss Adelaide, who have been engaged for fourteen years. Nathan organizes of the "oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York" and Adelaide is the main attraction at the Hot Box nightclub. Guys and Dolls opened on Broadway on November 24 1950.
Producers Cy Feuer and Ernst Martin, longtime Damon Runyon fans, assembled an exceptional team to bring the author's racy, hard-shelled, but basically soft-hearted characters to the stage. The team, which included composer/lyricist Frank Loesser, bookwriter Abe burrows, director George S. Kaufman and choreographer Michael Kidd, created a show that received unanimous ecstatic reviews and was praised as one of the most well-constructed musicals in Broadway history.
In 1951, New York Times drama critics Books Atkinson wrote Guys and Dolls: "During the decade in which the musical stage has been developing into a form of art, we have all appreciatively paid our respects to the dynamic unities of Oklahoma, Brigadoon, Carousel, South Pacific, and The King and I. They have made art and considerable enjoyment out of a form of theatre that used to be a hackneyed convention. But non of them has been written and staged with more skill and finish than Guys and Dolls. It is a triumph of style. Innthe case of Guys and Dolls luck has been a lady. Everyone associated with the production has helped everyone else, and they are in top form."