Great Falls Theatre Company opens It’s a Wonderful Life on Dec. 11
“You’ve been given a great gift, George, a chance to see what the world would be like if you’ve never been born.”
It’s a well-known line from It’s a Wonderful Life, spoken by Clara, an angel hoping for her wings, in the Great Falls Theatre Company holiday production, as she reminds George Bailey of how good he really has it.
London Griffith is directing the company’s production of It’s A Wonderful Life-The 1947 Lux Radio Theatre, which opens Dec. 11.
Griffith, a C.M. Russell graduate, moved back to Great Falls in January, after about 20 years on the east coast, including about 13 years in theater in New York City.
Back in Great Falls, she found herself at a community meeting of the theatre company and recognized Amber Henning Griffith, the company’s board president and no relation, as someone she’d done Missoula Children’s Theatre with in high school.
Henning Griffith encouraged Griffin to audition for their spring comedy production and as they were discussing this season, with plans for Rocky Horror Show as a season add on, they were considering what their holiday production should be within the tightened schedule.
Griffith said she’d done this version of It’s a Wonderful Life several times in New York City and suggested it for the season.
That lead to her directing the production.
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“This has brought me a huge amount of joy,” Griffith said, since after NYC and a few years in Allentown, Penn., she wasn’t in a good place with theater.
The company is presenting a unique adaptation of the holiday classic as a recreation of a historical radio broadcast from March 10, 1947.
Radio adaptations like this were common promotional tools in the 1930s–40s, designed to reach audiences who might not have seen the movie in theaters and to give popular films a “second life” on air.
Most of the productions Griffith had done in the past had casts of 8-12 and while there’s about 40 roles, many are one liners, so actors play multiple parts.
It’s fun for the cast, Griffith said, to play with voices while playing those multiple parts.
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This cast includes some “old hats” of the company and some new to the stage.
“This show doesn’t require memorization, which opened it up to a lot of people to come in and just give it a go,” Griffith said.
The show includes live sound affects and “all the really important, quintessential It’s a Wonderful Life moments,” Griffith said.
One of the cast members got to into the show, originally sponsored by Lux Soap that he said they should make their own Lux soap.
The company is selling about 30 bars of their own version of Lux soap at the merchandise table during the show.
All proceeds of the soap sales will be split between the GFTC and two nonprofits voted on by the cast — The Trevor Project and the Great Falls Animal Shelter.
Nathan Staigmiller, 19, plays George Bailey.
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His mom is the stage manager and brother is working in the sound booth for the holiday production.
He didn’t get into theater in high school, but his mom suggested that he’d probably enjoy it and so he worked backstage for the company’s production of Music Man in the summer of 2024 and on stage for last year’s holiday production of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
“It just kind of stuck,” he said.
Participating with or watching the GFTC is “one of the more interesting things to do in Great Falls,” Staigmiller said, and anybody can get involved whether it be watching, sponsoring, working backstage all the way up to acting on stage.
“It’s really just for everyone, that’s why I just love it,” Staigmiller said and this version of the show is a “unique way of sharing this story and I think people will like it.”
Cal Ekstedt is breaking onto the stage for the first time with GFTC, playing Libby Collins, a reporter giving updates during ad breaks in the radio show at KGTF, after about three years costuming for the company.
She’s been involved in cosplay for a long time, particularly voice acting, so the radio show seemed like a good introduction to the stage.
The set looks like a vintage radio show and the production is “like a little time capsule and I think that’s really cool,” Ekstedt said.
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She said many don’t know what they like until adulthood and having community theater like GFTC provides the opportunity for many to explore those interests.
The company is now about halfway through its third season and they’ve seen “tremendous growth” in audiences and those auditioning, who become part of a cast and part of their community,” Henning Griffith, board president, said.
“I think we really are serving a need in this community. A need for connection. A need for the arts, filling your soul and just that way of experiencing something new in the community,” she said.
For Griffith, the director, having live theater like GFTC, “helps the community blossom.”
Want to go?
Showtimes are:
- Dec. 11 at 7 p.m.
- Dec. 12 at 7 p.m.
- Dec. 13 at 2 p.m.
- Dec. 13 at 7 p.m.
Tickets are $20 and available on the company’s website here. A limited number of tickets available in person one hour before performance.
All performances of this family friendly live performance are held at the University of Providence Theatre, 1301 20th St. S.
Run time is about 70 minutes with no intermission.
