Damon Runyon

The title Guys and Dolls has a ring to it that most other productions lack. The reason is its author, Damon Runyon, is among America’s most gifted novelists and truly the king of Broadway fiction. Guys and Dolls tickets are like gold dust to those seeking a Broadway thrill, written by the Master and timeless in their offering. The Great White Way has been immortalized by many – both writers and actors alike – but it was the writer who wrote about Broadway from the bottom-up that was to triumph as the most authentic voice of all. Damon Runyan’s gutter-level exposé of glittering Broadway’s underbelly gave literary America a jolt like an all-night cup of diner coffee. Guys and Dolls on Broadway was one of Damon Runyan’s awesome rat-a-tat typewritten masterpieces, hewn in a style every bit as pointed and hard-boiled as the characters he depicted. But Guys and Dolls was just the tip of a very interesting iceberg in the life of one Alfred Damon Runyan.

From Manhattan, Kansas to Manhattan, New York

Runyon was born in 1880 in Manhattan, Kansas and grew up in Pueblo, Colorado. He was a child soldier, enlisting to fight in the Spanish-American war at 14. When Runyon returned to the US he became a reporter in Colorado, before moving to San Francisco. A typo which named him as “Runyon” caught his eye. He liked the switch and adopted the new spelling of his name. Eventually, Runyon moved to New York. Here, his encounters with the city’s loan-sharks, gamblers, bookies, chorus girls and gangsters informed his astonishing new brand of fiction. The journey from Manhattan to Manhattan had been necessary; Runyon’s western roots provided a “reverse” contrast between the Midwest and the Big Apple that lent a sense of vertigo and urgency to his observations. His tendency to favor the underdog was exacerbated to near-perfection and the Runyon catalog began to pour its gold. Runyon was no fool; he understood that he had wrought something momentous and that tickets to Guys and Dolls and other Broadway shows would surely come to pass.

Guys and Dolls: Great White Way Fiction

After having his first “Great White Way fiction” published in Cosmopolitan, Runyan seemed to hit a creative motherlode. He relentlessly tapped out tale after tale, loaded with crazy nicknames and crazier characters. This was the age of industrial hardware, when the boom was turning to bust, or rust. Through it all, that Underwood typewriter kept going. Runyan’s timely descriptions of gamblers and all-night diners, where critics, dancing girls and wiseguys went for pancakes and coffee in the wee hours, formed the public side of his secret society. The floating crap games, shady deals and even murders (which in real life Runyon called “The Main Event”) composed the other side, the irresistible tenderloin tidbits Runyon cast off like literary treats to his adoring legion of admirers. This was Broadway’s underbelly, the seamy world Runyon understood and lived more than any other writer of his time. It’s no wonder Guys and Dolls enjoys such status and Guys and Dolls tickets sell so fast. Guys and Dolls Broadway brings together several Runyon stories, and they add up perfectly, for they are fragments of the same world – the real world. Find cheap Guys and Dolls tickets now and immerse yourself deep in the dark side of delicious Broadway. You won’t regret it…

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Mixx
  • Google
  • TwitThis