“Guys and Dolls,” which opened Friday, marks the beginning of a new era for Chanhassen Dinner Theatres. It’s the debut production from new artistic director Tamara Kangas Erickson.

Kangas Erickson, of course, isn’t new to CDT. She’s been the resident choreographer for more than two decades and was the obvious choice to take over after longtime president Michael Brindisi died unexpectedly a year ago. And given it’s a particularly dance-heavy show, “Guys and Dolls” fits right into her wheelhouse.

In terms of both visual spectacle and immersive action, “Guys and Dolls” delivers.

With music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and the book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, “Guys and Dolls” is based on several Damon Runyon short stories about the intersection of gangsters, gamblers and religious folks on the streets of New York City.

The show was an instant success when it debuted on Broadway in 1950. It ran for more than 1,200 performances and won five Tony Awards, including best musical. It’s since been revived countless times and staged by companies around the world.

Kangas Erickson drew inspiration from the latest revival in London in 2023. Nicholas Hytner set the action on an in-the-round stage, which provided a more immersive and intimate experience for the audience.

Taking full advantage of CDT’s large stage, Kangas Erickson skipped using a fixed set with platforms and instead created mini environments with moving set pieces. She also often pushed the actors toward the front of the stage, which helped amp up the energy from both the cast and the audience.

The cast includes many familiar faces from CDT’s pool of talent, but Kangas Erickson made the bold choice of using new-to-the-company actors in three of the four leads. Whether intentional or not, it felt like a statement that Kangas Erickson plans to honor the past while adding her own fresh ideas to the proceedings.

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Kangas Erickson took on Broadway vet Linda Talcott Lee, an Emmy winner for “The Comedy Hall of Fame with Jason Alexander,” as co-choreographer and the pair have worked wonders. CDT has a well-earned reputation for high-caliber singers and dancers and as far as the latter goes, “Guys and Dolls” boasts some of the biggest and boldest dance sequences in recent memory.

Costume designer Rich Hamson created a dazzling, Technicolor array of outfits, with the many jewel tones highlighted by Sue Ellen Berger’s innovative light design.

“Guys and Dolls” is the sort of show where the actors can go as big as they want and the cast pretty much followed suit to create a hyper-real world filled with big personalities that never get too hammy. The acting is terrific across the board, but Matthew Hall and Ryan London Levin deserve extra kudos for the casual chemistry they display as two second-tier gangsters.

The only real fault in “Guys and Dolls” is the story itself. It’s about as paper-thin as it gets for an old-school Broadway production and it’s full of sexist nonsense that wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, fly today. If you can set aside the sometimes problematic aspects of the plot, “Guys and Dolls” is a must-see feast for the senses.

‘Guys and Dolls’

When: Through Sept. 26
Where: Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, 501 W. 78th St., Chanhassen
Tickets: $146.98-$92.54 via 952-934-1525 or chanhassendt.com
Capsule: Tamara Kangas Erickson makes a strong showing as CDT’s new leader.

The Gophers men’s basketball team shrugged off another bad-luck injury to add the latest chapter to its feel-good story on Saturday.

A day after starting forward Jaylen Crocker-Johnson was ruled out indefinitely with a foot injury — Minnesota’s third starter to go down this season — the U blew out Rutgers 80-61 at Williams Arena.

The Gophers’ (13-14, 6-10 Big Ten) hot shooting led to their second-straight victory and stopped Rutgers’ (11-16, 4-12) run of two wins in a row.

Minnesota was 60% from the field and 58% from 3-point range. It was the first time the U shot that percentage from the field since February 2024 and the U’s 15 made threes Saturday were the most in a Big Ten game this season.

When head coach Niko Medved was hired last March, he put out a mandate to add outside shooting and he checked that box with transfer portal additions Cade Tyson and Bobby Durkin.

Tyson scored a game-high 27 points on 7 of 9 from deep. Dukin added 12 on 4 of 7 from behind the arc.

When Durkin made three treys in a row in the second half Saturday, fans at The Barn chanted “Bob-by!”

Langston Reynolds added 19 points and nine assists and provided good defense on Scarlet Knights leading scorer Tariq Francis, who was held six points below his scoring average. He had 10 points on 4 of 12 shooting.

On Friday, head coach Niko Medved said Crocker-Johnson will likely miss the rest of the season after pain became too severe in his injured foot. The U’s leading rebounder and second-leading scorer had missed the two previous games, a 69-57 loss to Washington last weekend and a 61-44 win over Oregon on Tuesday.

Without Crocker-Johnson, Minnesota’s rotation stayed at six total players, with five playing more than 3x minutes.

Saturday’s 11 a.m. tipoff led to a groggy start for both teams at The Barn; Minnesota missed its opening five shots, while Rutgers began 2 for 9 from the field.

Coming out of the under-16-minute timeout, Minnesota put together a 9-0 run over next three minutes to take an 11-6 lead.

Minnesota surged late in the half taking a 36-23 lead at the break. Cade Tyson and Isaac Asuma each hit threes in the last minute of the half.

The threes would keep falling in the second half.

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A year ago this time, Minnesota’s women’s basketball team was playing itself out of an NCAA tournament bid. Heading into Sunday’s home game against No. 18 Michigan State, the Gophers are in position to improve their seeding and, perhaps, even be host to the first two rounds.

Coming off a convincing victory over 10th-ranked Ohio State last Wednesday, No. 23 Minnesota appears to be peaking at the right time, winners of nine straight and owners the No. 8 spot in the NET rankings, the most important statistical rankings system used by the NCAA tournament committee when choosing and seeding automatic qualifiers.

Minnesota point guard Amaya Battle drives on Ohio State’s Kennedy Cambridge during the Gophers’ 74-61 victory Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026, at Williams Arena. Battle’s five assists moved her into second place on the Gophers’ career assists list. (Claudia Staut/Gophers Athletics)

“It feels good, but now we’ve got to redirect our focus,” guard Mara Braun said after Wednesday’s 71-64 victory over No. 10 Ohio State. “But, yeah, this team is just so much fun.”

Braun has been a big reason for Minnesota’s success this season.

Part of the 10th-ranked 2021 recruiting class, Braun had an auspicious freshman season before breaking her right foot as a sophomore, and again last season as a junior. The guard from Wayzata was not available at this time last season, and she didn’t play in the Gophers’ five-game run to the 2025 WBIT championship.

Braun scored 18 points against the Buckeyes and hit a big clock-beating 3-pointer in the fourth quarter to keep Minnesota in control. Since scoring a season-high 22 points in a victory at Penn State on Jan. 28, she is averaging 17.1 points a game.

That takes big pressure off of last year’s leading scorer Grace Grocholski, and with senior Amaya Battle, graduate transfer Brylee Glenn and sophomore wing Tori McKinney gives the Gophers (21-6 overall, 12-4 Big Ten) five veteran guards who can score, distribute and defend.

In Sophie Hart, the team has a classic post who can defend and fill up the score sheet; she finished the Ohio State game with 18 points and 10 rebounds.

The close ones aren’t getting away as much as they did last season.

“I think we’re just a little bit more relaxed than we’ve been in the past,” grad Hart said.

Heading into Sunday’s game against the Spartans (21-6, 10-6), Minnesota has the fewest turnovers in Division I basketball (279) by a long shot, and the fourth-best assist-to-turnover ratio (1.61).

Against Ohio State, which owns the nation’s seventh-best average turnover margin (8.59), the Gophers had nine, despite gamelong full-court, half-court and double-team pressure on their guards.

“We work on press-break every single day,” Braun said. “It’s the first thing we do in practice, making sure we take care of the ball.”

Minnesota has put in a bid to host a regional; whether it’s awarded will come down to how strong the Gophers finish the season. They have two regular-season games left — finishing Big Ten play at Illinois on March 1 — and the Big Ten tournament in Indianapolis to make a case.

The Gophers beat then-No. 10 Iowa on Feb. 5 in Iowa City, and then-No. 21 USC on Jan. 11. A victory over the Spartans would be another feather in the Gophers’ caps before they begin a conference tournament that will have six teams in the top 15 of the current NET Rankings (UCLA, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Maryland and Michigan State).

“The way that they’ve approached things has gotten even better,” third-year coach Dawn Plitzuweit said. “They’re really locked in. They create their own energy. … You’ve got to play hard and get after it, but you need to be relaxed.

“When you play at your best, performing at your best, at anything, you are calm and you’re relaxed, and that’s really important to us. They’re figuring out how to do that at a really high level.”

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The bars and eateries lining West Seventh Street are generally thought of as places to go before and after hockey games, and not often listed among the highly-regarded breakfast establishments in the Capital City.

For one day anyway, with Olympic gold on the line, that’s going to change.

Team USA faces off versus their neighborhood rivals from north of the 49th parallel at 7:10 a.m. Minnesota time on Sunday morning, with the Americans seeking their first Olympic title since the famed Miracle On Ice in 1980. And with three Minnesota Wild players wearing red, white and blue, along with several more from the State of Hockey on the team, bars and restaurants throughout the region will be making adjustments to accommodate the fans.

“We’re going to be open at 6:30 in the morning,” said Tom Reid, the Wild broadcaster and namesake of his Hockey City Pub, located two blocks from Grand Casino Arena.

They normally open at 11 a.m. on Sunday, but with Team USA playing for gold for the first time in 16 years, exceptions are being made.

“We’ll have breakfast sandwiches and our full menu as well,” Reid said.

Although if you want a screwdriver or an oatmeal stout, you will have to wait until the first intermission. Per Minnesota state law, beer, wine and liquor may not be served at on-sale establishments until 8 a.m. on Sunday. At least one area restaurant manager thinks a one-day, one-hour exception is in order.

“We should definitely have that. How many times is the U.S. playing Canada for the gold medal? This is bigger than the Stanley Cup,” said Julia Flaherty, manager of Joseph’s Grill on Plato, across the river from downtown St. Paul. They will open at their normal time for a Sunday, 7 a.m., and have been experiencing big crowds for all of the Olympic men’s and women’s games so far.

An email to Governor Walz’s communications office regarding the idea of an earlier liquor serving time on Sunday was not immediately returned.

A few miles to the south in Inver Grove Heights, the folks at B-52 Burgers & Brew experimented with early openings on Sunday for the Minnesota Vikings games played in Europe in September and got good crowds. On Friday night when they announced their 7 a.m. Sunday opening for the hockey game, manager Michael Pitsiladis said the Facebook post got more than 400 likes almost immediately.

“We do brunch every Saturday and Sunday, we’re just starting it earlier,” he said, noting that the huge response on social media caused them to ramp up their staffing. “We were planning on opening with just one server and one bartender, but now we’re having a full crew on hand.”

And from the sounds of things, they will be busy early, even if they’re just serving coffee and orange juice for the first hour.

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