The holiday classic It's a Wonderful Life was adapted into a radio play

When can you see a play with your eyes closed? Attend one without leaving your house?

When it’s a radio play, that’s when.

The Texas Repertory Theatre Co. demonstrates with a simulcast of its current production, It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play.

Joe Landry’s adaptation of the classic 1946 Frank Capra film casts its story in the format of a 1946 Christmas broadcast from a studio atop New York’s Chrysler Building. Five actors play 43 characters and supply sound effects to help the audience (in the “studio” or at home) visualize the action. Numerous theaters across the nation have presented this version during the past decade.

Texas Rep director of community relations Gary Kreitz brought the script to the company’s attention and initiated the idea of broadcasting one of the performances.

“It’s a faithful adaptation that streamlines the story a little,” Kreitz says, “so that the show runs about an hour, 45 minutes."

Companies that have staged it have done well with it. One Chicago group has done the play 10 years running and also had great success airing it on a local radio station.

“When I took it to Steve Fenley (Texas Rep’s artistic director), he loved the script — and also liked the idea of broadcasting a performance. I started talking to KSEV as far back as February.”

The talk-radio station is owned by state Sen. Dan Patrick, who’s also an on-air commentator. For Saturday’s broadcast performance, the show’s regular cast will be joined by celebrity guests including former Houston Oilers quarterback Dan Pastorini, and radio personalities Patrick, Sam Malone, Chris Baker and others, who will take on some of the brief character roles.

The performance benefits Be an Angel, one of Patrick’s favorite charities. Saturday’s broadcast will also be on the Internet at www.ksevradio.com and will be rebroadcast during the Christmas weekend.

Texas Rep artistic director Fenley, who’s also a cast member, says the radio format helps solve the problem of how to depict the story onstage.

“It poses challenges because of the many different locales, time periods and characters,” Fenley says. “The story moves back and forth in time, including representation of heaven and the afterlife. Doing it in this format removes those difficulties while keeping the feeling and meaning of the story.”

One of the best loved of all holiday films, It’s a Wonderful Life is arguably the masterpiece of director Capra, whose many classics include Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, You Can’t Take It With You and Lost Horizon.

It was based on Philip Van Doren Stern’s short story, The Greatest Gift, which the writer initially circulated on 200 Christmas cards in 1943 because he couldn’t find a publisher. An RKO executive bought the story, then when his plan of doing it as a movie with Cary Grant fell through, he passed it along to Capra, who cast his perennial favorite Jimmy Stewart as the altruistic hero.

The slender story supplied only the barest skeleton of It’s a Wonderful Life. Capra and screenwriters Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich greatly expanded it to tell the richly detailed story of small-town nice guy George Bailey, who goes through life forever putting his own dreams and ambitions on hold in order to do the right thing for others. One Christmas Eve, when a confluence of dire circumstances leads the despairing George to contemplate suicide, a hapless apprentice angel confirms the value of George’s life by showing him what the world would be like if he’d never been born.

When the American Film Institute compiled its list of the 100 most inspirational films, It’s a Wonderful Life ranked No. 1.

Fenley marvels at the way his audiences are taking to the show.

“It touches people in a very particular way, and I’ve been sort of shocked by that. The nostalgic appeal of the radio format, which is from the same period as the story, makes a homogenous blending of elements.

“I think it’s all about hope and redemption, about George realizing what’s really important in life. It has real parallels to another classic piece of Americana, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, in which Emily (the heroine) learns the tiniest things in life mean so much. That’s the crux here.”

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE: A LIVE RADIO PLAY
7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays, through Dec. 23