Terrace Little Theatre is transporting people back to the 1940s through Peter Church's adaptation of the beloved movie classic, "It's a Wonderful Life: On the Air" now playing at the McColl Playhouse.
The wooden theatre is the perfect venue for a Christmas staple that came out in the 1940s considering that the production is in the style of an old-time radio play where actors are portrayed in a radio studio.
Audience members will enjoy the familiar message of the movie version of, "It's a Wonderful Life," in this studio recreation. It's amplified by the jingles for cigarettes, beer, shampoo and hair products sang by Karen Carter, Amanda Ramsay, and Amber Zanon.
Every cast member stands out but Foley artist Marc-Oliver Chouinard, who is in charge of sound effects, steals the show.
"A really exciting part is that we do live sound effects," said director Marianne Brorup Weston. "We have everything from horse hooves, gunshots, wind blowing, doors opening and closing, getting slapped, people running up and down stairs, chimes from heaven. All that stuff is being done by an artist who has this big workstation with all his various contraptions on it."
"Being the Foley artist on stage for this show is really exciting for me — getting applause for making noise during a play," said Chouinard.
Weston's direction is complemented by Robin Hollett, who guides the trio singing the commercial jingles in between the spoken scenes. Both have extensive directorial and production experience in local theatre.
Owen Faetz, an 18-year-old actor born and raised in Terrace is notable for six roles, weaving in and out of characters like Young George Baily, George's younger brother Harry, Ernie Bishop the taxi driver, Tom the stubborn customer, Horace the bank teller and Nick the bartender.
"Every actor has a slightly different process for taking on multiple distinct characters," said Faetz. "The first thing I considered for how my characters speak is the period, 1919-1945. Figuring out what some words meant in the context of the past helped me with a lot of my lines.One example of this is the word “see” which now means “look at that thing,” but back then was more to emphasize a point, like saying “understand” now.
"Next I thought about a characters age, and what that meant for the placement of their voice," he continued. "Harry and Young George have higher pitched voices, whereas my middle aged characters like Tom and Nick have much deeper voices. But for my oldest character, Horace, I chose to bring my voice up again, but instead with a more nasal quality to it, to distinguish from Harry and Young George."
"Other factors I considered were the location, with Bedford Falls being close to New York and Buffalo influencing my choices for when I needed to add an accent to a character," he said.
Watching the young actor was impressive. Faetz is on his way to fulfilling his dream of attending university in pursuit of a degree in the performance arts, and becoming a union-certified actor by the ACTRA or CAEA unions.
Whether it is Faetz's acting, Chouinard's sound artistry, or Weston and Hollett's guidance, "It's a Wonderful Life: On the Air" is worth the price the admission. There is one last performance date left, the afternoon of Dec. 15 beginning at 2 p.m.
Tickets are available at Misty River Books, Eventbrite and at the door.
