Wonderful Life

Don't know if we'll get a local review, with the show only in Asheville a few days, but here's one from Concord of NCSC/ITP's It's A Wonderful Life
BG--

‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ with a twist

November 18, 2008

By Lee Ann Sides Garrett
For the Kannapolis Citizen

George Bailey would have been proud. The story of his life, a holiday mainstay, was performed live, in a slightly different style, at the new Davis Theatre in Concord on Saturday.
The play, “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play,” delighted the audience with the story of George Bailey’s efforts to help his community and his brush with near disaster, as told in Frank Capra’s original classic movie.
The setting was WBFR in New York, where five actors played some 30 characters, depicting a live radio broadcast as it would have been performed in 1946, complete with sound effects, on air and applause lights.
Audience members were amused with the different methods and items used to make the effects and the many voices used by the actors to play so many characters.
“It was interesting to see how they did the sound effects,” said Mona Barnhardt. “They all worked together like clockwork.”
Barnhardt referred to the fact that all five actors took turns doing sound effects while the others were speaking.
“I thought it was as true to the storyline as you can get,” said Karen Elmore. “It really captured the essence of the original movie and the holidays.”
The play was produced by Asheville’s North Carolina Stage Company. The Davis Theatre performance kicked off a tour of the southeastern United States for the drama.
It is only the second event performed at the new Davis Theatre, created from a former courtroom in Cabarrus County’s historic courthouse. With room for only 227, the theatre provides an intimate setting for professional touring productions.
The theatre provides only events involving professional touring productions and plays, so it does not compete with local talent. Saturday’s play is the only such production in the theatre’s season, the rest consisting of a wide variety of musical reviews.

The Cabarrus Arts Council moved into the old courthouse in 2005, and the theatre officially opened Sept. 15. The new theatre is named for Roy and Sue Davis, the chairman emeritus of S&D Coffee and his wife, who is active in the Concord community.
The building also houses four galleries downstairs with the state-of-the-art theatre on the second floor and dressing rooms on the third.
The play included radio commercials for S& D Coffee and CESI, Concord Engineering and Surveying, who sponsored the performance, portrayed as they would have been in a 1940s radio broadcast.
“This is how it would have been listening to the radio at the time,” said Vince Brezovic. “It leaves you in the right spirit for the holidays."