Guys and Dolls

Ogunquit Playhouse, Ogunquit, ME, June 28, 2025

Reviewed by John Amodeo

If you are within traveling distance of the Ogunquit Playhouse during the next few weeks, make plans to catch its current production of Guys and Dolls. which runs through July 19. This production taps into what is best about this classic American musical, and it is filled with memorable songs and a lot of laughs.

Most of America is familiar with Frank Loesser’s effervescent score for Guys and Dolls. Given the five Broadway revivals it’s had since its 1950 premiere, national tours, regional-theater productions, and even high school productions, just about everyone has had an opportunity to enjoy this delightful cotton-candy musical. It contains the hits “I’ll Know,” “A Bushel and a Peck,” “Adelaide’s Lament,” the eponymous “Guys and Dolls,” “If I Were a Bell,” and “I’ve Never Been in Love Before”; and that’s just Act I. Act II boasts nearly as many hits, including “Take Back Your Mink,” “Luck Be a Lady,” “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat,” and “Marry the Man Today”; each one is a bona fide entry into the Great American Songbook. Countless crooners and jazzers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Sammy Davis, Jr. have covered these songs, and many performers continue to do so today.

Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows’ rib-tickling book charts the romantic mishaps of gambler Nathan Detroit and Miss Adelaide, his long-suffering fiancé of 14 years who is the star dancer at the Hot Box, a local nightclub. There’s a romantic subplot that involves gambling ringleader Sky Masterson and the highly reserved missionary Sarah Brown. Brown hopes to reform Masterson but faces exceedingly unfavorable odds. Hilarity ensues with the help of Masterson’s and Detroit’s gambling ring pals and Miss Adelaide’s fellow chorines. There isn’t a weak moment in the show, and this production takes full advantage of that.

Even if you thought you had seen your fill of Guys and Dolls productions, this one makes its case for yet one more viewing. In addition to the buoyant book and the score, this outing boasts performances you wouldn’t want to miss. The best of the best are the two leads, both Broadway veterans, with Rob McClure (Mrs. Doubtfire, Chaplin, Something Rotten, Honeymoon in Vegas) and the quadruple threat (actor/singer/dancer/comedian) Bianca Marroquin (Chicago, The Pajama Game, In the Heights). They are both hilarious, adorable, and winning as Nathan Detroit and Miss Adelaide, respectively. McClure fully embodies Nathan Detroit with his “Noo Yawk” accent, flawlessly timed pratfalls, and non-stop bug-eyed reactions to his constant bad luck. Marroquin was an absolute joy to watch and made mincemeat of her hilarious one liners with perfect gum-chewing comic timing. She played her bigger-than-life character as over the top just enough, but she also got laughs just as easily with the arch of an eyebrow or the curl of a lip—small movements that reached the back of the house. Her “Adelaide’s Lament” was both a tour de force and a master class in musical comedy. With her strong alto belt, she thrillingly brought her song to a trumpet-like finish with the line “a bad, bad, co-old.” One of a rare group of performers who have played both Velma Kelly and Roxy Hart in the current Broadway revival of Chicago, as well as having played Chita Rivera in the film Fosse/Verdon, Marroquin has those Bob Fosse legs that stretch on forever, and she made good use of them as Miss Adelaide, especially in her nightclub numbers “A Bushel and a Peck” and “Take Back Your Mink.” McClure and Marroquin are two Broadway stalwarts who are always working, and this is the reason.

The second couple, Masterson and Brown, played respectively by two other Broadway veterans Ephraim Sykes (Hamilton, Motown, the Musical, Newsies) and Maria Bilbao (Sweeney Todd) didn’t fare quite as well. Bilbao has a stunning voice with a glistening clear soprano that drew wistful sighs from the audience during “I’ll Know.” She employed an equally impressive lower register with a solid alto in “If I Were a Bell,” where the buttoned-up Brown lets her hair down and parties with Masterson on a raucous night in Havana, Cuba. She was delightful here. She let loose and danced on tables and otherwise not behaving at all like a missionary. Her lower-register vocals deepened the sensuality of her movements. The one quibble with her performance is that her Brown was too modern earlier on, not stiff and prim enough to make the journey to uninhibited seem like a real departure. For all of Sykes’ Broadway credentials, he lacked the requisite charisma and stature to be believable as either a gambling ringleader or a swoon-worthy suitor not just for Brown but for her imperious supervisor General Matilda B. Cartwright (played a little too broadly by Heather Parcells). Sykes’ big number, “Luck Be a Lady” was well staged, but it was underwhelming. His romantic scenes and duets with Bilbao lacked any of the chemistry the dialogue and lyrics spoke and sung about repeatedly. Director Al Blackstone, who otherwise created the 1940s Manhattan gambling and nightclub scene with colorful and vibrant authenticity, could have solved these shortcomings easily with a recasting for Masterson and some better early-on direction for Bilbao.

Still, there were still many more riches to mine in this production. Blackstone deftly directed the rest of the production. He also served as choreographer and staged the production’s large, talented ensemble that moved skillfully and danced thrillingly in the numbers “Runyonland” and “The Crapshooter’s Dance.” The chorines danced nimbly with synchronized high kicks, swiveled hips, and outstretched arms in each of the Hot Box Girls numbers. Barrett Riggins played the small but entertaining role of Benny to the hilt and almost stole the show with his cameo appearances in his zoot-suited crouching posture and over-the shoulder beady eyes that spoke “Quiet, his men are everywhere” without saying a word. What really stole the show was Mykal Kilgore’s Nicely Nicely Johnson, who brought the house down with a roof-raising “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat” that drew the longest ovation of the evening. His jovial, round-cheeked likability and his incredibly flexible vocals that soared to the rafters were the cherry on top of this delectable ice cream sundae of a musical.

“Guys & Dolls” runs at the Ogunquit Playhouse, 10 Main Street, Ogunquit, ME through July 19, 2025. Note: Rob McClure will not be appearing in the final week of performances (July 15-19). Tickets: $40-$180. For tickets, call 207.646.5511 or visit Guys & Dolls Musical – 2025 Show | Ogunquit Playhouse