MANSFIELD — Daniel O’Brien can’t go home at the end of rehearsals and complain to his wife about his romantic counterpart at the Mansfield Playhouse.
Victoria O’Brien is one in the same.
The real-life married couple perform together as George and Mary Bailey in the new holiday show, “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play,” which opens Friday night at the Mansfield Playhouse.
The beloved American holiday classic comes to captivating life as a live 1940s radio broadcast generated by the eight-member cast playing a variety of roles and offering many different voices.
It’s a Wonderful Life
For seven decades, people around the world over have fallen in love with Frank Capra’s classic Christmas movie It’s a Wonderful Life.
But few of those fans know that Capra’s film was based on a short story by author Philip Van Doren Stern, which came to Stern in a dream one night.
Unable at first to find a publisher for his evocative tale about a man named George Pratt who ponders suicide until he receives an opportunity to see what the world would be like without him, Stern ultimately published the story in a small pamphlet and sent it out as his 1943 Christmas card.
One of those 200 cards found its way into the hands of Capra, who shared it with Jimmy Stewart, and the film that resulted became the holiday tradition we cherish today.
With the help of an ensemble that brings a few dozen characters to the stage, the story of idealistic (yet frustrated) George Bailey unfolds as he considers ending his life one fateful Christmas Eve, joined by an angel sent from Heaven to show him what life would have been like if he had never existed.
“We basically transform or transport the audience to a 1940s radio station and they become now a live audience to a radio broadcast,” director Doug Wertz said.
“It’s a condensed version of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ but they do stick to the script and the storyline,” he said.
Included is a “Foley” station, manned by veteran actress Candy Boyd, to produce a variety of sounds needed to help make the show come to life.
“I think what will also be fun is that you’ll get to see a show within a show while hearing a show because you will get involved with being a studio audience,” Wertz said.
“The houselights don’t go completely out, so those members on stage can watch what you’re doing,” he said.
(Below are photos from a dress rehearsal on Monday evening of “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play” at the Mansfield Playhouse. The story continues below the photos.)
Daniel O’Brien plays George Bailey at various points in life, from young boy to angry businessman who is ready to end it all on a bridge in Bedford Falls.
“I can feel with some of the situations that he has to basically handle himself and start manning up and taking responsibility for his family and for the business,” O’Brien said of his character’s transition.
“The main difference between this show and ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ is it’s condensed and not a full staging of the show. We’re also actors portraying actors. It’s faster-paced and things happen quickly.
“It’s a challenge trying to give each moment what it’s worth and give it as much respect as you can,” said O’Brien, a Richland County Board of Elections employee who was most recently on the Mansfield Playhouse stage in “Angel Street (Gaslight)” in 2023.
O’Brien, who has performed with Victoria on stage as a married couple in the past, said he can identify with George Bailey. He and Victoria met as teenagers at the Playhouse.
“Flirting and some of the routine is how I picture George and Mary meeting. Some of that kind of happened to us, where they’re pursuing each other and then they’re also kind of running away from it a little bit,” he said.
“It’s kind of fun to really invest in that and pull from what we’d already experienced those feelings in a small town. You know, ‘Stuck in Mansfield, blah, blah, blah, can’t get away.’
“And then you find the values of that community. Yeah, maybe you envision going to the west coast, you envision going to New York City as a kid. But we’re here in Mansfield and I think you grow in the appreciation of those values.
“I think it mirrors sometimes quite a bit (of real life),” he said of George Bailey’s experience.
Renee Rebman, who first began performing at the Mansfield Playhouse as a teenager in 1978, portrays a variety of characters, including the oft-befuddle Uncle Billy Bailey.
“The audience is going to hear the traditional show and see it done in a different way because you do get to see the sound effects live that they’re doing on the side and the people running up and back and forth to the microphones doing the different characters,” said Rebman, who was last on stage in “Exit Laughing” in 2022.
Ever expressive, Rebman isn’t satisfied with merely hitting her lines in a radio show.
“I try to act out my lines. We don’t just speak into the mics. We do different things. I actually get carried away and sometimes it’s hard for me to remember that I was supposed to pretend I had to speak into a mic because I wanted to be moving and gesturing,” she said with a laugh.
Ticket information
“It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Show” stages Dec. 6-7 and 13-14 at 7 p.m. at the Mansfield Playhouse, 95. E. Third St. in downtown Mansfield.
A Sunday matinee will also be offered on Dec. 15 at 2:30 p.m.
Purchase tickets at www.mansfieldplayhouse.com or by calling the box officer at 419-522-2883.
Playhouse veteran Eric Gustafson returns to the stage for the first time since performing in “A Christmas Carol” one year ago.
He provides seven or eight voices, including Freddie Filmore, the radio show’s master of ceremonies. His wife, fellow veteran Johnna Gustafson, is also in the show and persuaded him to audition.
“She said she really wanted to do it. I said, ‘well, if you do it, I’ll do it,” he said with a laugh.
Gustafson said the audience will enjoy seeing a show within a show.
“There’s no fourth wall. We’re going to be dealing directly with the audience and asking and encouraging them to be involved in the production,” he said. “There is an ‘applause’ light that they are going to see and hopefully will react to.”
He said the cast, which also includes Jeffrey Hutchison and Taylor Beasley, has come together easily.
“A lot of it is the script is right there in front of us. So it’s just a matter of finding the characters and the voices and, and finding the moments in dialogue that allow you to project the emotions that you’re trying to feel,” Gustafson said.
(Above, the cast from “Its a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play” performs one of the commercials from the “broadcast.”)
Beasley, 17, is the youngest member of the cast. A senior at Mansfield Classical Academy, she has performed in multiple youth shows at the Playhouse and the Renaissance Theater.
“I just love Christmas and ‘Its a Wonderful Life’ is just one of my favorite Christmas stories,” said Beasley, who plans to attend Cedarville University next year to major in musical theater.
“I think everybody on this earth has a purpose and if that one person wasn’t there, how different other people’s lives would be … I just think that’s a really powerful message,” she said.
