TicketNews: “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play” will make its Broadway debut this holiday season, with Andrew Rannells, Megan Hilty, Tituss Burgess, Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna starring in a limited engagement at the Broadhurst Theatre.
Previews begin November 4 ahead of an official opening November 18. Directed by four-time Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks, the production will run through January 3, 2027.
3 comments:
I can’t tell if doing a seasonal and limited run broadway show is going to be a good thing or not for broadway. I suppose this must be a thing that happens (Holiday season shows for limited time), but I guess I never noticed them – probably because I’ve never been to New York at that time of year (too crowded). Are limited runs like this Tony Award eligible? Would it be profitable to do this every year if it’s a hit – like a different cast and it becomes a tradition to see it? But also, there are lots of things that the show would be competing with (most notably the Rockettes). I’m interested to see how this goes.
I’ve also been thinking about how the times that most people get time off will be our busiest days, which we talked about in class. I wonder if getting big stars to commit to something like this if they don’t need to.
Every year on Christmas Eve, after our post mass 7 fish dinner had been cleaned up, my family sits in our living room together and watches Its a Wonderful Life. Even outside of the holiday season, we quote the movie very often. I didn’t know there was a stage version, and the structure being a radio show makes is very appropriate in my opinion. Also, oh my goodness is this cast stacked. I’ll be sad to not be able to see its New York run. However, I’m not sure how necessary this limited run performance is, and how much it’ll resemble the original story. Often when theater attempts to recreate iconic movies and culture moments, the performance can fall flat because the original heart of the work does not exist in its new medium. It definitely has potential, especially with the casting, but I guess only time will tell.
I feel like more people need to listen to audio dramas. The most recent one I listened to served as a great background to my work cleaning my room. With the rise of listening to audio books in recent years we should continue this trend into the world of radio plays, some recordings of audio books could even be classified as radio dramas if you look into the descriptions. Even podcasts are more popular now compared to years ago. People tend to listen to stories while completing tasks. At least for me, having something to listen to can help me focus better on the task at hand. I am extremely curious as to how the radio play format will be taken to a visual media. After all, a radio play is a creation made to tell a story through audio only. I look forward to discovering what the reception of this performance will be once it opens.
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