Classic Christmas radio play lands on SE Campus

By Kelli Londono/entertainment editor

Acting student Garett Mote performs one of the 12 voices he’s cast for during rehearsal for It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play on SE Campus. Mote said he didn’t know he had it in him.
Georgia Phillips/The Collegian

SE Campus’ C.A. Roberson Theatre presents It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, the last show of the fall season. The classic story is brought to the stage with Christmas cheer and new challenges for the students performing.

Actors of a radio studio in 1946 come in on Christmas Eve to perform a live recording of It’s a Wonderful Life.

Pert Durapau, director and speech and drama chair, said one of the exciting things about this production is the audience will get a behind-the-scenes look at an old-fashioned radio play, including sound effects, singing of commercials and student actors playing multiple roles, some up to 12.

“One of the great, great challenges of the show is that everyone has to center these characters and be so true every time they approach the mic to the character they are playing at the moment,” she said.

Durapau said each time they approach the microphone their body alignment, voice and face must express the particular character.

“They play these multitudinous characters, and they’re cast in these parts because of the wonderful variety they’re capable of producing in their voices,” she said.

Durapau said not only does the show come just in time for the Christmas season but also displays a message fit for TCC.

“For our audience, it’s very much a show that brings out a true holiday spirit,” she said, “but also a spirit that makes you aware of the fact that many times we accomplish great things without ever realizing it.”

Student Garett Mote, who plays Freddy Filmore and 11 other voices, said he didn’t know he had the capability to produce so many voices.

“I started [practicing] and realized I am just able to switch my voice around,” he said. “It is going to be a lot of hard work, and being in theater, you normally only do one or two parts that are around the same kind of attitude, but this is a whole spectrum of different people that we’re playing.”

Tiana Rahman plays actress Lana Sherwood, who voices seven different characters. She said the most important thing about using different voices is to make sure the audience knows which character you are at all times.

Student Joseph Laws plays actor Jake Laurents, who voices George Bailey, the lead role. Laws said he is fortunate to be one of the two in the play who do not have to voice more than one character.

“It’s weird. I am playing a character who has no lines,” he said. “I am playing a character who’s saying lines of another character, like, as Jake Lawrence, I have no lines, but as George Bailey, I do.”

Laws said he thinks the audience will enjoy the show because it is an easy, feel-good story.

“It’s a simple story that everyone has heard a thousand times,” he said. “Even if you don’t know the movie, you know the story that’s trying to be put across. It’ll be something you just sit and watch. You don’t have to put a lot of thought into it.”

Student Taylor Ann plays actress Sally Applewhite and the voice of Mary Hatch, George Bailey’s wife. She said she thinks the audience will enjoy the show because it is a classic story with an entertaining twist.

“It’s just different and fun. And most people have already seen the movie so they already kind of know what is kind of going on,” she said. “They get to see live sound effects being done and watch these actors switching voices, sometimes literally one after another. It’s a mess of fun.”

It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play will run Nov. 29-Dec. 1. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. with a 2 p.m. Friday matinee. Tickets are $6 for general admission, $3 for non-TCC students and seniors and free for all TCC students, faculty and staff. For reservations, call the box office at 817-515-3599.