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The holiday season seems to be a time for so many wonderful traditions for many people. It is a time to gather together with friends and loved ones and remember the past and toast to the future. All across America arts organizations celebrate the season by producing the many traditional classics we have come to love. Concerts of Handel’s Messiah, ballet’s of The Nutcracker, theatrical productions of A Christmas Carol, and of course the television versions of Rudolf, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and A Charlie Brown Christmas just to name a few. And for many, no holiday season would be complete without viewing the classic movie, It’s A Wonderful Life.
The 1946 Frank Capra film offers another great tale of transformation and redemption, much like Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. For the mid 1940’s audience, the tale was a present day event. For us now, the 1940’s is a time of nostalgia. Big Bands and swing dancing were all the rage. The small towns of middle America were where the many soldiers of WWII “came home” to. Television was not quite ready for prime time so families sat around the radio in the living room to listen to the news of the day and of course the great music of Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman among others. These wonderful “radio days” bring forth a feeling of nostalgia for a simpler and perhaps more wholesome time.
It is in this spirit that the CBT is offering a new “holiday classic”: It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play. The classic movie has been lovingly transformed into a 1940’s style live radio show which will inhabit the Carousel Theatre from December 2-19. Five actors play more than 40 roles and provide all the live sound effects, commercials and songs we might have heard 50 years ago. You will be the “live audience” at Studio A at WBFR in Manhattan on Christmas Eve, 1946. The play is directed by guest director Bill Jenkins and features resident artist, guest artists and UT faculty members including David Alley, and Tracey Copeland Halter. So turn on the radio and let’s take a trip back in time to Bedford Falls New York to relive It’s A Wonderful Life.
The production runs in the CBT Carousel Theatre from December 2-19.
The University of Tennessee | College of Arts & Sciences | UTK Theatre Department | Knoxville, Tennessee 37996 | 865-974-5161
