The ESU Theatre will be bringing holiday cheer to their audience with a little bit of a twist this year.
From Dec. 2 to 5, the theater will present a live radio production of “It’s A Wonderful Life,” the timeless holiday classic adapted from Frank Capra’s film.
“We were looking for the right opportunity to do a holiday show, and we had discussed different options,” said director Jim Bartruff of the decision to put on a radio drama. “We kept coming back to this one.”
The decision to use the radio broadcast format came partly as a result of the late Homecoming season, Bartruff said.
“We needed to find a show that would allow us the appropriate amount of build time and rehearsal time,” he said.
More than that, once they began discussing the time frame they realized most of the students weren’t familiar with radio drama.
“It’s a great opportunity for us,” Bartruff said.
To prepare for the production, students have studied “It’s a Wonderful Life” to learn the story and Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion” to learn the ins and outs of radio drama. The format poses some challenges for the players, as well as some benefits.
The main challenge, Bartruff said, is that this generation of students didn’t grow up listening to the radio, and so weren’t familiar with radio drama.
“In this company of 12, only three had ever heard of ‘A Prairie Home Companion,’” Bartruff said.
To help the actors work on their voices, Bartruff enlisted the help of adjunct professor Herb Wyrick to co-direct.
“What Jim got me in here to do was to work with them on voices and characterization without any movement,” Wyrick said. “Standing in front of a microphone and creating a voice that identifies the character without having the opportunity to use all that physical training these actors get. And getting these people to stand still is something of a challenge.”
The actors agreed that the format is a bit different from a straightforward play.
“It’s different because you’re not focusing as much on your body, it’s more about the voice,” said Desiree Dye, a senior from Chanute. “And also because you have this script there, it’s kind of a challenge of figuring out do you memorize or do you rely on the script.”
The actors also must have an awareness of where the microphones are, how their voices will project and their timing, Dye said.
“Cues are a bigger deal because you can’t really cover it as well,” she said.
One interesting aspect of radio dramas is the use of foley artists for sound effects. Sophomore Ross Rundell of Salina is the propmaster for this production, and he spent a good deal of time researching sound effects and building the props, some of which include a miniature door, a wind machine, thunder and a squishy bag of cornstarch to simulate the sound of walking on snow.
Foley artists Cara Lohkamp, a freshman from Wichita, and Jennifer Newell, a junior from Emporia, also had to learn how to make sound effects with their voices.
“I’ve had to learn how to whistle like a cricket, cry like a baby,” Lohkamp said. “It’s a pretty even mixture of vocal and physical sound effects.”
The show will be performed from Dec. 2 to 5 at 7:30 p.m. in the Karl C. Bruder Theatre at ESU. Tickets are available from the ESU box office in the Memorial Union or by calling 341-6378.