Steps To The Stage
Steps To The Stage
It's a Wonderful Life A Live Radio Play & CCT Season Reveal
What if you could bring the charm of a 1940s radio play to the stage, all while presenting the venerable classic, It's A Wonderful Life? On "Steps to the Stage," we explore this intriguing blend with director Chris Diehl and actors Philip Kasinski, Lourie Deards Chase, and Danny Chase as they breathe new life into "It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play." Our guests share how this innovative format allows theater companies to capture the magic of the beloved film without the need for an extensive cast and elaborate settings. Listen in as we discuss the fascinating dual-layer narrative, where actors portray both their radio personas and the iconic characters of George Bailey and his circle.
Step into the small-town charm of Bedford Falls as we delve into the characters that make this story a timeless favorite. Our talented actors reveal the challenges and joys of bringing characters like George Bailey and Mary Hatch to life, capturing the heart of their journeys. Danny Chase offers an insider’s view into the art of voice work, portraying an impressive eleven characters within the radio play format. This multifaceted storytelling approach not only captures the essence of the original but also adds fresh layers of creativity, inviting audiences to experience the beloved tale anew.
Beyond the stage, our conversation opens up on the crafting of authentic soundscapes and engaging period-appropriate commercials that enhance this radio play experience. With the Chino Community Theater's upcoming season on the horizon, we shine a spotlight on exciting productions like "Steel Magnolias" and classics such as "A Raisin in the Sun." This episode promises a rich exploration of community theater's creativity and the passion that fuels it, setting the stage for a memorable season ahead.
It's A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play runs weekends Dec. 6-22nd
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$15 Student/Senior/Child
$18 General Admission
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There's Bert, the cop, who is friends with Ernie, the cab driver, so we occasionally see Bert and Ernie together.
Speaker 2:The lights are on, the curtains up. This is Steps to the Stage. Folks at home, do you have a business, small or otherwise, that isn't pulling in traffic the way you want it to? Well, it might be, because they don't have something to remember you by, and that's why today we are sponsored by Graphic Details Inc. Signs and displays. They will print out your banners, they'll cut vinyl, they'll do window graphics for the company cars. We're talking business cards, banner stands, lcd displays, tabletop displays, logos, all in full living color. Again, that is Graphic Details Inc here in Chino, california. Thank you so much. Hello and welcome to Steps to the Stage, the community theater podcast where we interview the community theater professionals you know and love. I am your host, marci, and today we are talking about it's a Wonderful Life, a live radio play. I have four friends in front of me to talk about this wonderful show. Let's start with the director, chris. Hello.
Speaker 3:Hello Marci, I am Chris.
Speaker 2:Diehl, and I am the director of this wonderful show called it's a Wonderful Life. A live radio play and then our friend Philip, if you would mind introducing yourself.
Speaker 4:Hi, I'm Philip Kaczynski. I'm sorry, I'm playing Jake Lawrence in the play, but then he plays George Bailey throughout the play.
Speaker 2:Our friend Lori.
Speaker 5:Hi, my name is Lori Deards Chase. I play Sally Applewhite, who is the actress that portrays Mary Hatch.
Speaker 1:And Danny. Hi, I'm Danny Chase and I play Harry Jasbo Haywood, a 1940s character actor who plays Clarence, and other roles.
Speaker 2:Now you may have noticed a couple of different or three total different names in each of those introductions. As I mentioned, this is a live radio play version of it's a Wonderful Life, which sort of is a play within a play type of deal, and so our three actors here have a lot of different roles, but also like roles within roles, and so it becomes very, I'm sure, very confusing in the rehearsal room sometimes to keep track of who each of you are and what you're meant to do.
Speaker 3:Well, I should say that the alter egos that they have, that really only comes into it during the pre-show, okay, and maybe a little bit throughout the production, but it's mostly going to be them portraying the different characters in it's a wonderful life. So that's their alter egos, their forties. You know, movie star alter egos is just a kind of a little fun gimmick. That kind of starts the show off and and it does kind of go through the whole thing. But I don't want to give the listeners the impression that they're going to be, you know kind of going in and out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, it's not really that. It's really for people who want to come and see. It's a Wonderful Life.
Speaker 2:That's pretty much what they're going to be getting. Is that story Wonderful? But it is sort of in that radio play format which. I think is really cool and really interesting to see and to be able to do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a lot of. I think it's kind of something that a lot of theaters are doing now.
Speaker 3:It seems to be a popular way to be telling these stories. It really did start in a theater I believe it was in Connecticut, where they tried to do a full-on production of it's a Wonderful Life and they realize this is going to completely break our budget because there's so many characters in the story and just so many different settings. And so they realized that, yeah, we can't do it this way. This is just impossible for us. So they came up with this live radio format which just imitates the actual 1940s radio shows that they used to do back in the day, where the big stars would come and they would recreate their films. Oftentimes they would use the people that were originally in the movies, sometimes they would change it out to other stars, but yeah, they would recreate these movies because back then.
Speaker 3:It seems crazy to think of today, when everything is so accessible forever, it seems today at our fingertips. But when a movie you know was in the theater, it was in the theater for a period of time and then it disappeared, it was gone, and of course this is before television. Even so, the movies would go away and you might hope for the studio to re-release it, but that only happens with the really big hits and it's a Wonderful Life. I don't think even made money Originally.
Speaker 2:yeah, was not very popular.
Speaker 3:Right. And it kind of was like television viewings that really yeah, once it entered public domain. And there's a lot of movies that are like that, Even the Wizard of Oz and you know other movies that today we think of as just classics that everyone has seen, and some of them really weren't successful at the beginning, and this is one of them and of course, now it's just a beloved classic.
Speaker 2:Would you mind talking us through the plot of Wonderful Life for people who somehow are not familiar with?
Speaker 3:Sure, sure, yeah, and I know there's a lot of people that aren't. But it sounds like it's this kind of sappy kind of feel-good kind of story and it's not really. It gets very dark. But it basically follows this character, george Bailey, and we kind of follow him throughout the main parts of his adult life and I think it spans. Does it span like 20 years, philip?
Speaker 4:maybe From when he's a child.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we do have a little bit of a prologue with them as children, but most of it is kind of like college through adulthood.
Speaker 4:I'd say 40s. Yeah, because he has four kids by the end.
Speaker 3:Right right. So we're really looking kind of at the story of this man's life, how he has a lot of dreams, big dreams that don't seem to be coming true for him, and he gets to a point in his life that he kind of questions why is he here? That's kind of his story. That's kind of the story is his journey. I don't want to go into it too much because so much of the fun of this story is kind of coming into it. I remember seeing it for the first time, completely knowing nothing about it, and it's just really wonderful to discover this story and to meet all these wonderful characters.
Speaker 2:Would each of you mind introducing your characters a little bit, if you would like to start, sure.
Speaker 4:So George Bailey is the protagonist of the story it follows. You know the show goes through his entire life and the choices that he makes. He has a dilemma, you know. I don't know how much of the plot I should say, but for those of you who are familiar, he has lots of choices and every step of the way he makes a definite decision along the way, and sometimes that doesn't lead to things that are actually good for him, and so he gets frustrated with that and begins to question his role in the universe and in the town that he lives in, bedford Falls.
Speaker 3:He's wonderfully complex and just full of contradictions and you can really see a little bit of everyone, or I should say everyone can see a little bit of themselves in George Many times.
Speaker 2:yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I hate to use the term everyman because it's so overused, but because George, there's some great little just idiosyncrasies to George that I think make him a really great and unique character. But yeah, he's a fascinating character to watch.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I feel like he's a catalyst for, you know, the audience as they watch his journey. He's the type of character that people wish they made the same decisions that he does along the way, and they can also see the frustration. You know he has anger, he has frustration. He has, you know, things don't go his way all the time, but when it comes down to it it's really about the love that he has for people in the town that he grows up in. He embraces the town and everyone around him out in there.
Speaker 2:Okay, laurie, if you would like to.
Speaker 5:Yeah, mary Hatch is a girl who grows up in the same small town as George, bailey, bedford Falls. She feels connected to him at a really young age. She has a very clear idea of how she feels about George and what she wants for her life from the very beginning, of how she feels about George and what she wants for her life from the very beginning and she takes some really confident and definitive actions to make sure that she eventually gets the life that she wants, which I think is really cool to see in a story, especially at that time, and in a female character. There's a lot of strength in Mary. There's a lot of cleverness in Mary. There's a lot of determination in Mary. Lot of cleverness in Mary. There's a lot of determination in Mary and that dimension, I think, sort of gives some room for George to show more parts of his personality and do a little bit more of his decision-making out loud, because he has her there to help support him Wonderful yeah.
Speaker 1:Danny.
Speaker 1:So my primary character is Clarence the Angel and so I particularly enjoy that character because he and all of I play 11 different characters in this show, some of which only have one line.
Speaker 1:But we we try to work really hard, each of the supporting actors who are supporting these two very real and authentic characters. Chris has given them, given us some license to be a little more like creative and caricature-y, and so we try to make them very distinct. But Clarence in particular is a lot of fun because he starts in this place of kind of just blissful ignorance and he's learning about George Bailey throughout. He's watching with Joseph the archangel from above and kind of understanding more about George Bailey as we go along with the audience. So it's fun to react, along with the audience, to what he's seeing and introduce the audience to these different elements along the way, sort of a surrogate, yeah. And then eventually he gets to do something the audience doesn't, which is dive right into the story, meet George Bailey, talk to him and help him along the way and help him make the right decision. We hope.
Speaker 2:We know he does. Would you mind talking about some of the other characters that you play? Just a few.
Speaker 1:Yeah, besides Clarence there's Sam Wainwright is a childhood friend of George and Mary's and so Sam Wainwright is like longtime family friend. There's Bert the cop, who is friends with Ernie the cab driver, so we occasionally see Bert and Ernie together. We also have Martini who owns the local bar. Martini is a beneficiary of George and Mary's efforts because he is able to buy a home at one point in the show able to buy a home at one point in the show. And there's also some really fun characters like Mr Welch, who is just like the husband of the wife of someone who George was rude to, and so we see like twice in the show. But yeah, and others, there's a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 11.
Speaker 1:That's so you said that I was like.
Speaker 2:Whoa, that's just so many. I mean, even you said they're smaller roles, but still that's you do sometimes find yourself talking to yourself.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's actually, I guess you could say, a feature, not a bug, because I think the playwright specifically wanted those moments where the audience was watching somebody having a conversation. Sometimes it's three characters, somebody playing three characters in the same scene, and so, yeah, it's very important that they have very distinct voices because, especially in those moments because, you have to remember, this is intended for a radio audience, even though they did have live audiences that they did it for, you know, at the time it was mostly radio audiences that were going to be listening to it. So it's really important that the voices be distinct, or else they're going to think it's the same person talking. So, yeah, and it gives you also a license to be a bit more, yeah, caricature.
Speaker 3:Exactly. It's kind of essential really to give the audience, because they don't have the visual to go with it. So it's all from the voice and it's really I think it, I would say, probably makes you kind of stretch different muscles in your arsenal, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to say it sounds like a fun challenge. If anything else, yeah, well, this way definitely this way we can get um.
Speaker 3:You know, seven actors to portray 30 different people on a stage so it's sometimes it's funny because they they have to get used to really just they don't have to do as much as as you would in a normal play. So just in the case of talking on the phone, it feels weird to them to just stand there and talk into a microphone and not holding a phone up to their ear? Yeah, very little.
Speaker 3:It's really just kind of choreographing the use of the mics, because we only have two mics, so they have to share a mic sometimes and we have to determine, you know, are they going to be on the same mic for this scene, or sometimes we like to have George and Mary on opposite mics and sometimes we like to have them together, and so it you all. You also kind of give the audience in the room a a little bit of a taste of of of, you know, actual blocking. Yeah, little bit. You know there's some times where George will wander off and you know, because he's often always, you know, fuming about something. So you know we have him kind of wandering around the stage sometimes and you know. So a little little bit of that. But mostly you know they're.
Speaker 3:The rest of the cast is on stage, the whole show, you know. So they have to. A lot of times, when they're sitting in their seats waiting to go on, they're also doing, uh, sound effects of their own, and of course we have people doing our actual sound effects during the show, the Foley.
Speaker 2:So I'm sure you were going to come to that I was so excited to talk about about what. What are you doing for the sound effects and for the Foley for the show?
Speaker 3:Well, and in fact, our Foley, our Foley person, actually the guy who's collecting all of our props and stuff for the Foley, Jack Friedman, we're so lucky to have him. He's going to be coming today to bring it, so we're going to kind of see what we're going to be working with today. Very exciting, yeah. So we have two people, Teddy Setlak and Rain Riaza, who are going to be our stage managers. Very exciting. And I'm very excited to see all the little things, because I know one thing he said he was making was a wind machine, so because, you know, it's Christmas time and winter and stuff like that. So we'll put a lot of use to that, I'm sure. And so a lot of just little fun practical effects that just give it more of an old-fashioned, you know, feel to the show which we're really trying to push fashion you know, feel to the show which we're really trying to push, because I feel like that is sort of the trademark of like.
Speaker 2:when you say radio play, the first thing that comes to my mind is the guy in the corner with a xylophone doing all the effects.
Speaker 1:Lots of opening and closing of doors. Yes.
Speaker 2:I'm sure.
Speaker 3:Yes, footsteps yes.
Speaker 2:I was going to say the little coconuts too. Footsteps.
Speaker 3:And something we did for the season reveal, which was when Mary and George are walking along and they take a rock and they break a window of an old house and we had them stand there on the stage with a glass and a stocking, christmas stocking and hammer it and just little things like that, and the audience always gets a big kick out of watching those things, when they're not, of course, paying attention to the riveting performances of these individuals here.
Speaker 5:I want to add to that that it is really fun and it definitely adds to the overall ambiance of the radio play format. It's also really interesting to me how all of those sound effects as they're written into the script are very purposeful. Sound effects as they're written into the script are very purposeful. So they're all intentionally built in to help fill in a part of the story that otherwise might have been really illustrative if you could see it in a visual format. But because we don't necessarily have that over the radio, they have been included in this particular script, not only because it's fun, but also because it helps you understand a moment better, and I think that's just another really interesting take on how a radio play format lets you tell a story.
Speaker 2:I was going to say again about that radio play format, and it must be weird for you as actors to have to stand in front of a microphone, and not really because it's closer to voice acting, I would assume at certain points, more than onstage acting.
Speaker 4:A bit. There's moments where I definitely want to emote more or I want to move or interact with other actors in a way that I really can't if I'm stuck on a mic. So we're going to be working on that more, as we have live mics throughout the rehearsal process.
Speaker 5:It's definitely an interesting balance because you do have an audience in the room with you.
Speaker 5:And you need to make sure that what you're doing is engaging enough for the people in the room to come along with you. But it's a different imaginative exercise than a lot of other plays are, and so, at least for me, it's been very much a matter of reminding myself okay, so in this story, within the story, this is how we're telling it, and if we do it this way and if we all fill in our parts and pieces wherever we can whether you're doing 11 voices or three, or you're someone in the crowd underscoring a scene with all of our efforts combined, we can convince the audience to come along with us and then maybe help them imagine all the things that they can't see. But, at the same time, there are moments where it's just real hard to stand still, because if you're telling the story from a really genuine and authentic place, if you're being really sincere, you get so engaged in what you're talking about that it's hard not to express that physically in some form. Yeah, so it's very much a balance of the two.
Speaker 3:And I do want them to be sincere, you know, because we aren't doing a spoof. We're doing the story of it's a Wonderful Life and even though there are elements that people will laugh at, like the commercials for instance, when you know we do the live commercials and they sing jingles to Hair Tonic and stuff like that the audience always gets a big kick out of that as well, and those are supposed to be funny. And in fact, if you go back and you listen to some of the original, the actual commercials, they trying to do this kind of as a legit radio play and we're telling the story sincerely. So if you want to see it's a Wonderful Life for reels, you will see it, at least in this different format.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, that's good to know. And, for those of you interested, the show opens on December 6th, I believe, at 8 pm. Yeah, that's good to know. And, for those of you interested, the show opens on December 6th, I believe, at 8 pm.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, and everyone should be interested.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, yes, you are all interested right now. You can buy tickets on cctcom.
Speaker 3:Yeah, genocommunitytheaterorg. And yes, you can buy tickets online or you can just call the box office. Box office number you should know offhand 909-590-1149. Yeah, exactly there you go.
Speaker 4:All right.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, the four of you, for talking about. It's a Wonderful Life. This has been very fun and very interesting. If you need high-quality headshots or other professional photo work done, visit Zochi Neri Photography at fbme. Slash xneri photos. If we would shift gears a little bit, especially with Chris to talk about the season, reveal that you know community theater just did, which is very exciting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was really exciting. We have, I think, a really great season coming up for 2025. And these three people here actually participated in the reveal, because we always do a preview of the upcoming holiday show along with the new season. Yeah, we're already cast for our first show of 2025, which is going to be Steel Magnolias, and lots of people love that show.
Speaker 3:It's an iconic classic and we've done it before. We did it in the 90s. I think it was the late 90s was the last time we did it, but we thought it was time to bring it back. It's a very popular show and we're excited to do it, and Donna Rice is directing that, and anyone who is familiar with the children's theater side of our theater certainly knows Donna. So we're excited to have her directing for the adults for a change, and so she's got a great cast and she's going to get started on that, and she's so she's got a great cast and she's gonna get started on that, and that opens in January and then we're bringing back which we got cut from I'm very excited for this.
Speaker 3:Yes, for our musical Back by Popular Demand is a little shop of horrors which was on our 2020, you know the dreaded 2020 season. Uh, it got cast and they started rehearsal and it was happening and then boom, covid and no more. But luckily, we're bringing back, uh, juan Torres, uh to direct it, so he was the original director for it. But we are having it's going to be completely new production, so we're having, you know, we will be having auditions again for it, but we are having it's going to be completely new production, so we're having, you know, we will be having auditions again for it, and so we're really excited to bring that back to our stage. And that was another one we also did in the in the in the 90s.
Speaker 2:I believe Another one that the poster was here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that. Yeah, that might've been the children's theater production too, because they've they've done it as well, but, yeah, I believe we also we did it too. Yeah, yeah, I think maybe the community building or something.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think it might've been one of the earlier productions that took place here, which I can only speak to because my dad was in it and he was the dentist, and I remember him making the mask for the dentist's office using pieces of our toys at home. I could see your dad being the dentist for the dentist's office using like pieces of our toys at home.
Speaker 3:I could see your dad being the dentist for sure.
Speaker 2:Dentist is a very dad role, I feel like. Just in general.
Speaker 1:It can be.
Speaker 3:And then, of course, we're bringing back three on the edge this year we're doing last year we kind of had a theme with Hitchcock. This time we're we're we're doing three very, very different shows. One is called Breathing Corpses by Laura Wade, and I doubt most people are going to be familiar with that, and it's one that's really hard to describe. But I can tell you it's one of the most original shows that we're going to be doing on our stage next year. It kind of travels in time backwards and forwards and it kind of starts with somebody discovering a corpse and then it goes backwards and it's a really interesting play and gives us a little bit of the thriller aspect that we had in last year's Hitchcock Festival.
Speaker 3:And then we have Savage in Limbo by John Patrick Shanley, who is a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright for Doubt. He also wrote the screenplay to Moonstruck, so he's a really great playwright. And this is, I believe it's set in Boston. Michelle Knight Reinhart is directing it. Oh, I should say Breathing Corpses is being directed by Lauren Bell. Michelle Knight Reinhart is directing Savage in Limbo, which is about a bunch of people over in their 30s gathering at a bar and hilarity ensues. I don't know if it's all hilarity, but yeah, you have to come to see that. And then Bending the Spoon which we're really excited about.
Speaker 3:Yes, I forgot about this, yeah, bending the Spoon, which we kind of gave our audiences a taste of, I think, a couple years ago with a reading, but we're having a full-on production now, part 3, on the Edge. It's written by Ken Lay, who is a longtime CCT veteran actor director. Here he directed Dial-In for Murder last year. So he's going to be he's already written the play and he's going to be directing it as it's. I'm sure it's going to be a real labor of love for Ken and we're really excited to be able to. We always love to do new, something new. We don't always get that opportunity, but we have in the past have premiered some plays and so this isn't a premiere actually, but it is, but it is an original.
Speaker 3:It is an original work by by a local playwright, which we love to do. And then in the fall we have A Raisin in the Sun, which I'm just thrilled about because that's one show that I love and I've been wanting us to do it for a long time and we actually kind of got through our play selection last year and we tried to do it and we couldn't get the rights to it and then this year we did. So we're doing A Raisin the Sun.
Speaker 3:Tony Lind is directing it and Tony, of course she kind of pops up and does all our major classics. You know she did Children's Hour this year and she's done Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller and you know. So I'm sure she's gonna do an amazing job with A Raisin in the Sun and that's going to be our fall show. And then I'm directing Miracle on 34th Street. So I'm doing two Christmas shows in a row and and so I'm excited to do that and that's going to be just a regular old play. So we're not doing the radio version of that. That's going to be actual sets and blocking and stuff like that and people memorizing their lines Whoa, that's one of the nice things about this show is that they don't have to memorize their lines.
Speaker 3:That is good. Yeah, that's a selling point.
Speaker 2:Well, again, that's a fantastic season actually. Yeah, we got some real bona f point. Sure, well, again, that sounds it's a fantastic season.
Speaker 3:actually, I'm very yeah we got. We got some real bonafide, you know, tried and true audience pleasers for sure, and also for Three on the Edge, a few things that they probably haven't seen yet. So I think we got something for everybody. That just you know what we're always trying to go for.
Speaker 2:It sounds fantastic, and that's again throughout the course of the next year.
Speaker 3:Yes, 2025. And oh, I should mention big change we are starting our shows earlier next year, so they are not going to be starting 8 o'clock, they're going to be starting at 7.30.
Speaker 2:Okay. So, yes, keep that in mind, keep that in mind, get here early, 7.30.
Speaker 3:People seem to want to go out earlier now and get home earlier, so we are kind of just shifting with the times, and so 7.30 is going to be our new show time for 2025. All right, but not for this show, not for this show. We're still in 2024.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 2:As Phil starts reconsidering.
Speaker 4:That half hour out of my day.
Speaker 2:Well again. Thank you again to all four of you for joining me to talk about this. It's been wonderful With all of you.
Speaker 3:I was going to say it's been a wonderful podcast. It really has. Thank you, Marcy, Of course, Thank you to each of you. Thank you, I was going to say it's been a wonderful podcast. It really has. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Marcy, of course. Thank you to each of you, thank you.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thanks for listening to Steps to the Stage, and now it's time for the curtain call. You can follow us on Spotify, Apple, Google or any podcasting platform. We have videos up on YouTube and you can visit our website at stepstothestagebuzzsproutcom. And, as always, a special thank you to our audio engineer, Joey Rice, and our producer, Kirk Lane. Without the two of you, this show would not be possible.
