DIRECTORS' NOTE | “IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE”
“Rendering a motion picture on stage requires leaps of the imagination. Films are composed of many individual scenes and shots. Films generally move rapidly from place to place. Films are peopled by many actors playing many small, but vital parts, including silent passers-by. One useful solution has been to re-fashion the drama into a musical, where big song-and-dance numbers frame the dramatic action. In fact, Paul McCartney is writing his own musical version of It’s a Wonderful Life, due on Broadway in a year or two.
Since we think the original movie script is just fine, heartwarming, romantic, funny and, best of all, the story sits perched on the Bridge between Heaven and Earth, fantasy and reality, life and death. So, no songs.
Instead, a sound-score that creates the daily life of Bedford Falls through twenty five years, from icy Christmas 1919 through George and Mary’s ‘meet-cute’ in 1928 and their wedding in 1932.
Because our actors’ performances bring these characters (and nearly 40 more) to life, their words are delivered ‘on mic,’ a technique borrowed from 1950s radio, (microphones were usually not visible in films), married to a fully costumed stage-play with action, props and settings. Like the movie, we move swiftly from scene to scene, arcing through time and space.
Movie magic is delivered by way of evocative lighting and production soundscapes, including traditional film techniques like live Foley sound-effects and ‘walla,’ the background talk that peoples movie crowd scenes.
Our Second Act brings Bedford Falls into the post-war Christmas of 1945. It also delivers the town into the hellish Pottersville, when George chooses to never have been born. All the Holiday color is gone from Pottersville, made rotten with greed and hate, but, as you must know, ‘twas all a dream, and we wake to celebrate with lifted voices our own beloved community, from which we have drawn three generations of talented artists for this production.
It’s a Wonderful Life is our gift to you, each one of you an angel, at least for the night.” — David Ossman and Judith Walcutt