A local production of a classic story hopes to bring people together.

Written by Janelle Rudolph

It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play is showing at the Kamloops Sagebrush Theatre from November 24 to December 10. Live radio plays are dramatic, acoustical stories where the audience can imagine themselves within the radio station for the performance. Audience members experience the stories of the radio actors, and that of the characters they are portraying. This production gives a twist to the classic Christmas tale, by telling the story of both George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life together with the story of the radio actors using unique sound effects.

The tale of It’s a Wonderful Life was brought to life on screen in 1946 and was adapted for the stage as a radio play over 50 years later. The showcasing of the story at the local Sagebrush Theatre is a chance for people to experience a Christmas favourite as a live performance and create new memories during the first Christmas post-COVID.

A strong choice

The decision to produce It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play was made by Western Canada Theatre’s (WCT) Artistic Director of six years, James MacDonald.

“I think it is a universal story,” MacDonald said. “I think everybody can identify with it, which is a huge part of it, that it’s really a story for everybody.”

He explained that it’s a story that brings people together, which fits the theatre’s aim perfectly since, for the past two years, the pandemic has kept people apart and away from the theatre. Now, WCT is offering the opportunity for friends and family to gather, create new memories, and share past ones.

“It is an especially good story to tell now,” said Johnna Wright, production director. “And it’s partly because there’s been so many challenges in the last few years for people and there’s been so much about community.”

Both MacDonald and Wright stressed the importance of theatre in a community. MacDonald explained that one of the roles of theatre is to be a place of gathering, a place to come together for new experiences.

“When you come to the theatre, you have experiences that can be joyful, they can be thought-provoking, they can be socially relevant and topical,” he said. “So, we like to think that our primary purpose is entertainment, but we also have a real educational aspect.”

A unique twist

Wright was excited to sign on to the project for a few reasons. She explained that she’s seen it performed before having always thought of it as a story she’d love to tell, and because of its message of coming together. She described the message as touching, which is one of the reasons she loves this classic.

“[It] is one of those movies that I watch every year,” Wright said. “And every time I watch it, I’m like ‘well I’ve seen it 25 times, I’m not going to get emotional this time.’ And I always do.”

This telling of the story varies from the classic Christmas movie, because of the ‘live radio play’ element but the key messages remain. It’s a Wonderful Life is a story being told through voice acting and sound effects. It’s a story within a story being brought to life on stage.

“We get to explore the story of George Bailey, which is such a classic for a reason. It’s so much about, just all of us and how our lives are connected to each other and the impact we have on other people’s lives, sometimes without even knowing it,” Wright described. “Layer on top of that, the story of these radio actors who are putting together this play and have all this fun with figuring out how to make the sounds – the sound effects that would happen in a radio show which sometimes are not made by the items that you think would be making them.”

Macdonald and Wright both mentioned the difficulty in producing the on-stage sound effects, describing it as an interesting process. Wright further explained that the sound effects are one area of a radio play that is the most fun to work on, because of the way it helps create the world of the story. This is the element that makes the play particularly interesting for its audience.

A special experience

“When you go to see a live performance,” Wright said. “You’re a part of that experience in a way that you could never be with the movie.”

Wright added that there’s a connection between the audience and the performers in theatre, creating a stronger emotion to the performance. It’s especially prevalent in a story such as It’s a Wonderful Life where many people may have a relationship with the story beforehand. Previous connection to the story can be something that brings more people to the theatre and can create a more memorable bond when seeing such a story performed live.

“One of the things that happens in live theatre that really is not something that you get anywhere else,” MacDonald said. “Is that, when you see something like if something provokes you to tears or if something provokes you to laughter on stage, it is totally different than what you’d see on a screen.”

Wright and MacDonald both expressed that theatre performances are a special experience to connect family and friends. Everyone will experience the story differently, but that’s also what can bring people together.