Walker Bay Theater auditions for It's A Wonderful Life

If you have always wanted to be in a play and can’t remember lines this is for you!  Walker Bay Theater is proud to present the Lux Radio show version of  IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE as a 1940’s-style radio drama.  The script was arranged by Walker Bay Theater and is based on the classic Frank Capra holiday movie.  During the performance actors will “read” from a well-rehearsed script.  Folly Artists will create live sound effects during the performance!
It’s A Wonderful Life: The saga of George Bailey, the Everyman from the small town of Bedford Falls, whose dreams of escape and adventure have been quashed by family obligation and civic duty, whose guardian angel has to descent on Christmas Eve to save him from despair and to remind him by showing him what the world would have been like had he never been born that his has been, after all, a wonderful life. This faithful adaptation has all your favorite characters: George and Mary Hatch, Clarence, Uncle Billy, Violet, and, of course, the Scrooge-like villain, Mr. Potter. This fine dramatization not only celebrates the faith of the season, it also celebrates the American philosophy of life: hard work, fair play and the love and support of one’s family and community will be rewarded.
It’s a Wonderful Life probably experienced its greatest commercial success from two radio play adaptations: one broadcast on March 10, 1947 by the Lux Radio Theatre, featuring James Stewart, Donna Reed, and Victor Moore of the original cast, and another broadcast two years later on May 8, 1949, by the Hallmark Playhouse, starring just Stewart. While films were still developing as an art form, radio was at the peak of its popularity at the time. And without the forgettable Lionel Barrymore, and several production problems (such as a kiss between Mary and George considered too intense for the screen or references to real places and persons), a radio play got at the heart of the story while bringing it to life with a live performance. But after the 1949 broadcast, and with the end of the 40s, it seemed that public consciousness of It’s a Wonderful Life, too, had come to an end.

            However, three whole decades later, in 1974, the copyright had lapsed due to a clerical error. Television stations, searching for movies to air around Christmas, chose to show the film. It took off, growing into a television staple in the late 1970s. Capra described its reception as “the damnedest thing [he’d] ever seen,” delighted by its newfound popularity. The 1940s film remains one of America’s most enduring Christmas traditions to this day.