Dames and dice.  Wise guys and speakeasies. Horse players and dance hall girls. This is the world of Damon Runyon.

According to Jimmy Breslin, Damon Runyon “invented the Broadway of Guys and Dolls and the Roaring 20’s, neither of which existed, but whose names and phrases became part of theater history and the American language”.

Runyon loved Broadway, what he called “the Big Street”, and he loved the people, those big dreamers who flocked to the bright lights, even more. His rich imagery inspired everything from THE COTTON CLUB and CHICAGO to THE STING.  We find Runyon’s universe alive today in the hip-hop urban world of rappers, street hustlers, and entourages, and Runyon’s stories can be contemporized through this hip-hop lens.

Born in Manhattan, Kansas, Damon Runyon found his fame and fortune across the continent in Manhattan, New York. He was a newspaper man who covered major sporting events, sensational criminal trials, political conventions and wars for the Hearst newspaper chain. Runyon was read by millions of Americans every day. In his famous Broadway Stories, he created a unique, urban dialect called “Runyonese”, in which his raffish repertory of characters are called by distinctive nicknames and speak a richly comic lingo that borrows slang from jazz, vaudeville, sports, Yiddish and the criminal underworld.

Runyon’s stories featured larger than life characters in crazy situations and were inspired by real people Runyon knew. Names had to be changed to protect the not-so-innocent. For example, gangsters “Dave the Dude” and “The Brain” are really Frank Costello and Arnold Rothstein, respectively. Narcissistic reporter “Waldo Winchester” is really radio personality Walter Winchell.

Runyon’s flavor is tragic and comic at the same time. He was the “Coen Brothers” of his time. His stories are filled with amoral characters who are up to no good – but they often get their own just deserts, giving the audience a satisfying, moral, and hilarious ending. Against this backdrop, anything can happen:

• Three mob hitmen are paid to rub out the king of a fictitious monarchy, only to discover the king is a nine-year-old boy (“Gentlemen, the King!”).
• A safe cracker has no choice but to take his baby boy on a job, which complicates the heist - but earns the kid a share (“Butch Minds the Baby”).
• A beautiful waitress is the darkly comic downfall of three mobsters, because she is in fact a widow seeking revenge (“Dark Dolores”).
• A struggling boxer falls in love with his trainer’s niece – which is complicated by the fact that the boxer is actually royalty in hiding (“The Big Umbrella”).
• A bookie is kidnapped and held for ransom by a gang of dolts, who eventually owe everything to their prisoner because of their compulsive gambling habits (“The Snatching of Bookie Bob”).
• A parrot is the only witness to a crime and Runyon has to try everything to get the word out (“So You Won’t Talk”).
• A bold, uncompromising woman is the Giants’ biggest fan, and falls in love with the star pitcher. When she learns her husband is going to throw the World Series, she goes to extreme measures to teach him the honor of the game (“Baseball Hattie”).
• A con on the lam from the mob gets a job as a Santa but finds himself working a party hosted by his pursuers (“Palm Beach Santa”).

Runyon is the unnamed narrator of his Broadway Stories that largely take place on a ten-block stretch surrounding Times Square, - the “Great White Way" - populated by slumming members of the upper class and ambitious grifters in town to make big scores with their entourages, the policemen, the street vendors and hustlers who wander in and out from one story into another. Dozens of such colorful characters compose Runyon's universe, such as:

• Nathan Detroit - Runs the most sought after floating crap game in New York
• Sky Masterson - A high-rolling gambler willing to bet on anything, with no limits
• Big Jule - A tough gun-toting gangster from Chicago

• Nicely-Nicely Johnson - An overweight, good-natured and loyal friend of Nathan Detroit
• Madame La Gimp - The apple-selling street person who is not what she seems to be
• Good Time Charley - Proprietor of a speakeasy and known for his Tom and Jerrys
• Harry the Horse - A low-level gangster of dubious background, reputed to be packing heat at all times, but a good man to have in your corner
• Dave the Dude - A slick, high-level thug, who is movie-star handsome and a sharp dresser, a ladies’ man and a big-time bootlegger