New Chanhassen Dinner Theatres leader offers bold ‘Guys and Dolls’

It’s Tam’s turn.

For her first mainstage show as artistic director of Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, actor-turned-choreographer-turned-theater leader Tamara Kangas Erickson has chosen a classic American musical at the top of her bucket list — “Guys and Dolls.”

She hopes her staging of Frank Loesser’s 1950 musical about New York City gamblers and missionaries will signal where she hopes to take the nation’s largest dinner theater — a company that’s still reeling from the sudden death of her predecessor, Michael Brindisi, last February.

Brindisi led Chanhassen for 37 years with Kangas Erickson as his righthand partner and resident choreographer for over 20 of those years. She hopes to build on the legacy they created together.

“We’re going to find the heart in these characters and stories,” Kangas Erickson said. “At the same time, I’m coming at it from dance and with a love for fashion, so it might look a little different.”

Chanhassen is rare among the biggest Twin Cities companies in that it is a commercial (versus nonprofit) entity relying entirely on sales. Its 300-plus employees cannot rely on grants or donations as part of its business model. That puts a lot of pressure on each mainstage show.

Based on Damon Runyon’s short stories, “Guys and Dolls” revolves around underworld characters such as gambler Sky Masterson, hustler Nathan Detroit, Miss Adelaide, a nightclub dancer at the Hot Box, and missionary Sarah Brown.

“It’s a musical fable of old Broadway,” Kangas Erickson said.

And as she stages it for Minnesota audiences, she’s drawing inspiration from the 2023 production that opened on London’s West End.

“That was immersive and glittering,” Kangas Erickson said. “Chanhassen is intimate and close like that, and I wanted to create this feeling of aliveness together in this space.”

For Kangas Erickson, 54, it’s been a lifetime of building to this moment. The Shakopee native made her Chanhassen debut as a preteen playing Marta, the second youngest von Trapp, in “The Sound of Music” in 1981.

Two years later she played one of the orphans in “Annie.” She later attended St. Olaf College where she majored in fine arts with a dance emphasis. Show business, whether fashion or onstage, was always calling. And with “Guys and Dolls,” she gets to unite those worlds.

“And the girls are wearing baskets filled with velvet vegetables,” Hamson said. “I hope I don’t get in trouble for the eggplants.”

Kangas Ericson’s “Guys and Dolls” departs from what audiences are used to at Chanhassen in terms of set design. In the past, the company’s shows mostly took place on a unitary or stationary set with multiple levels. Now, the background for each scene is different — set pieces are stored backstage.

“It’s not bringing small pieces into an already created universe,” said Nayna Ramey, who has been the resident set designer at Chanhassen since 1988. “Each location is its own universe.”

And, important, there will be no platforms on the stage. The action all occurs on the same level.

“That opens up the stage to a whole different kind of design and the dancers are gonna love to move in it,” Kangas Erickson said.

And three of the four principal actors are new to Chanhassen.

Kangas Erickson said she is mindful that the show is opening during a time when Minnesota has been through a federal immigration crackdown, whose drawdown was announced Feb. 12. She does not want to trigger anything in the audience with her portrayals.

“The criminals in the show are sketched in a way that makes them seem unreal,” Kangas Erickson said. “We’re really sensitive to people’s emotional space for scary things, so we’re putting a little cartoon flavor on it.”

Ultimately, she added, “Guys and Dolls” is a stylish valentine to a bygone era that also serves a contemporary purpose as theatrical relief. “We just want to make it a whole lot of fun.”

When: Thru Sept. 26: 7:30 p.m. Tue., 1 & 7:30 p.m. Wed., 7:30 p.m. Thu.-Fri., 1 & 7:30 p.m. Sat., 6:30 p.m. Sun.