Guys and Dolls became the first American musical performed at London’s National Theatre.
Guys and Dolls has a book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, and a story drawn from the short fiction of Damon Runyon. Its plot connects New York gamblers with the mission worker Sarah Brown and the gambler Nathan Detroit’s long-running romantic complications.
The musical opened on Broadway in 1950 and won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1951. Its score includes “Luck Be a Lady,” “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat,” “A Bushel and a Peck,” and “Take Back Your Mink.”
The National Theatre presented Guys and Dolls in London in 1982. That production, directed by Richard Eyre, was the first American musical staged by the institution. The musical is sometimes grouped with later British revivals because of its London history, but its creators and original production were American.