There are a lot of Christmas stories that we think of around this time of the year, and a lot of Christmas stories that we see in various forms of media. I’d say A Christmas Carol is probably the main one for stage, and in many different forms. But what about the other classic stories that we all know so well? There’s Miracle on 34th Street, The Nutcracker, and so many more. I think it’s really important to think of other classic Christmas stories…and Hedgerow Theatre agrees with me, because their holiday show this year is It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play. Not only are we getting a new story…we’re getting a new format.
The past few years, Hedgerow has been giving us some very lighthearted holiday shows. They did A Christmas Carol Comedy for two years, so it’s nice that they’re continuing with the comedic side of things. It’s a Wonderful Life: A Radio Play is exactly what it sounds like. From the start, we see the set up of a classic radio station. There’s an “On Air” sign, and an “Applause” sign that light up. The radio station sign was hanging, surrounded by lights. There were old fashioned microphones, and props that were clearly there for sound effects. It was absolutely fantastic.
Obviously, I didn’t doubt for a second that this show was going to be great. I think it’s brilliant that Hedgerow has been going with comedic Christmas stories. Honestly, I think we all need it around this time of year. It’s a hard time of year…we all need a little laughter. And I really loved how creative this show got. We’ve all seen the classic radio shows…they’re a part of media history. The set up right there is really cool. We’re introduced to the “actors”, and then watch them voice multiple characters from the classic story.
Onstage, there are five actors and a pianist. Out of those five actors, only one of them plays one character. The main role of George Bailey is enough, of course, so that one definitely makes sense. But getting to watch the others jump from role to role, voice to voice, is super impressive and fun to watch. All the actors embodied the different characters in their voices, in their bodies, in their faces. I have to say, Tyler Elliott’s “Mr. Potter” was absolutely hilarious…a bit of a stand out for me. But I loved watching all of them.
It definitely takes talent to go from character to character, and I feel like the entire cast really took on that challenge and flew with it. In the program, there was an insert telling us what characters each actor would play, but even that couldn’t prepare me for what I was about to see. There were changes in a split second. There were people jumping from microphone to microphone, taking on someone new in the blink of an eye. Even watching our George Bailey was great. He may not have played multiple characters, but he embodied each moment of his sole character.
Something else I absolutely loved was that the play really was treated like a radio show. They had commercials throughout the “broadcast”, sung to the tunes of Christmas songs. They had a musician onstage playing piano throughout the show. They used various means of making sound effects. That was one of my favorite parts of the show, actually. It really was making use of everything, just as they would have in an actual radio show. Framing the whole show as such was great, and fun to watch.
It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play was absolutely so much fun. It was such a creative piece of theatre, and the whole idea of framing it as a radio play just made it even better. We all know the story of It’s a Wonderful Life, and the cast and creative crew just took that and ran with it. Everything from the set, to the directing (credited to the amazing Pete Pryor, a former teacher of mine, and comedy genius), to all of the acting, and everything else involved in making this show something, was spot on. This was something so fun, and such a holiday treat.
I saw It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play on opening night. I got to talk to a lot of the actors after the show, and the general consensus is that this show is just going to change and evolve as the run continues. It would be super interesting to see this show at various points in its run. These actors have put together something absolutely amazing on stage. We watched a whole new take on It’s a Wonderful Life, and they definitely came through with it. This radio play was a wonderful start to my holiday season. I applauded even when the sign wasn’t lit up…I think most of us in the theatre did!
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