GLENVIEW, Ill.—It’s not the Frank Capra’s 1946 classic Christmas film, yet watching the same story in a live 1940s’ radio production has all the charm, nostalgia, and Christmas spirit as the original on the silver screen. Joe Landry adapted Capra’s masterpiece into something special and engaging: “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play.” The actors’ terrific performances and the audience’s own imagination bring the beloved characters to life so that the audience feels they’re taking part in the show.
Staged in the Oil Lamp Theater in Glenview, a town that recalls the quaint, fictional town of Bedford Falls, the play immediately throws us back to America’s yesteryear.
The Show Begins
Decked out with microphones, red lighting, video projections (and everything else an old-fashioned radio studio would have), the set by Trent Jones features green and red holiday decorations to let you know it’s the holiday season.
As the On Air sign lights up red, the actors, costumed in designer Taylor Pfenning’s 1940s’ costumes, take their places behind stand-up black microphones. Before they even begin to tell the story, the actors read sponsor ads, which are typical of radio days of yore, and in the same style, the action is interrupted from time to time by rather silly commercials.
Under Lauren Katz’s direction and faithful to the great Capra classic, the inspiring the two-hour tale unfolds. But instead of watching George Bailey run across the wintery streets of Bedford Falls, we hear Alex Trinh’s realistic sound effects of roaring winter winds, car horns, and the tinkling of a glass bell that tell the audience another angel has just gotten its wings.
The story of George Bailey is that of a man who repeatedly gives up his big-city dreams to help others. His life is in such a shambles that he feels he has no reason to live and thinks his life has had no purpose or meaning. He’s ready to jump into a river to end it all, when he is stopped by someone called Clarence, who claims to be his guardian angel. The story is as captivating and profound as ever.
Although film actor Jimmy Stewart has become identified with the character of George Bailey over the years, Nathaniel Thomas’s portrayal of Jake Laurents, the radio actor playing George, is riveting.
The rest of the cast (Rami Halabi, Carolyn Plurad, Chase Wheaton-Werle, Halli Morgan, and Corey L. Mills) as radio actors, playing multiple characters in the story. Thus, the character names don’t match those in the movie, but we can guess who they are as the story moves along. It’s easy to tell who plays the wicked banker Mr. Potter, and who plays Uncle Billy, whose forgetfulness leads to missing bank funds that forces George to wish he’d never been born.
What makes radio production “It’s a Wonderful Life” such a jewel of a Christmas show is that its message is moving, meaningful, and instructive. By the end, when Clarence tells George “no man is a failure who has friends,” the audience feels the same heartfelt tears welling in their eyes as they did watching the movie. And, because it unfolds a few feet away, they may feel it even more so.
‘It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Show’
Oil Lamp Theater
1723 Glenview Rd., Glenview, Ill.
Tickets: 847-834-0738 or OilLampTheater.org
Runs: 2 hours (one intermission)
Closes: Dec. 28, 2025
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