‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ Is Pretty Wonderful

Milwaukee Repertory Theater presents It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play in the Stackner Cabaret October 31 – December 21, 2025. Pictured L to R: Wade Elkins, David Flores, Melinda Parrett. Photo by Mark Frohna.

For me the Milwaukee Rep’s new show, It’s a Wonderful Life A Live Radio Play, elicits two kinds of nostalgia, along with grinning appreciation of the theatrical skills at hand.

The first kind of nostalgia hits those of us raised on radio dramas, in my case from the late 1940s well into the television takeover (the 50s and 60s, often built on old radio programs).

At the Stackner Cabaret dinner theater, with props on one end of the stage and a piano for holiday carols at the other end, there may be exaggerated warm interplay (choreographed by director Jonathan Hetler and other behind-the-scenes talents) for the supposedly off-mike camaraderie among the five stage actors. In reality, back in the real old radio days, the actors may not have even known each other when they were called in to handle parts and sometimes multiple voices.

They didn’t do all the sound effects as they do here, while taking turns at the piano. Here they pretend to be both the children and adults in the story and harmonize on mock commercials in the radio vein (including one much like the actual “champagne of bottled beer” radio come-on).

So maybe the radio actors of old didn’t always jump off the mike to slam miniature doors, kick over garbage cans, splash water on each other or crunch snow using pebble-stuffed socks.

But they do here and it’s fun to watch how they change voices and concoct sounds. It’s also an important reminder of how radio played not just with our ears but with our imagination.

Playwright adapter Joe Landry (working from a famous short story inspired by Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” something the Milwaukee Rep also knows a lot about) has quite a career writing in the nostalgia field, and he trusts the snappy movie dialogue and speeches – how frustrated but outspoken George Bailey fights back against rich tyrant Potter.

The other sort of nostalgia is from the movie itself, how It’s a Wonderful Life was a box office disappointment in 1946 and a near freebie for 20 years on every television station in the country before re-asserting its copyright. By then it had become a holiday classic, containing some of the most famous dialogue in history, from “lassoing the moon” to “the richest man in town.” Every family still gathers round to watch the movie at holiday time and it was fascinating at the cabaret how the lack of visual images sometimes freshens the familiar.

Its main message also seemed to me to resonate even louder today. The message is not that there is a heaven or angels, it’s the fight for the importance of every life.

I know these actors can do many kinds of theater, but this sort of presentational style is something they are expert at, requiring whiplash speed and vocal agility. Of the women, Eva Nimmer’s talents are already familiar to Milwaukee while a national veteran Melinda Parrett is relatively new to Milwaukee. Both provide quicksilver vocal impact and winking asides.

Also relatively new to Milwaukee: Daniel Arana, who has the most lines as George Bailey, but escapes the inevitable comparison to James Stewart by vocally powering the clarion messages in long speeches. And Wade Elkins, who leaves us delighted he is so delighted to wear so many vocal hats.

This is also a showcase – and a reminder that he missed the heyday of radio acting, where he would have been beloved – for veteran local actor David Flores. No complaints here that he is more dramatic than in real life. It fits perfectly as the emcee for the audience and master of enthusiasm.

In under two hours without intermission, It’s a Wonderful Life A Live Radio Play sucks us in, maybe not intellectually but at just the right time to imaginatively tell a story that we need to hear as if new.

To further the veneer of a radio play, there is an applause sign that lights up onstage and mock Audiogram forms handed out to the audience to be read from the stage by the cast. The production runs through December 21, with ticket information at www.milwaukeerep.com/shows/show/its-a-wonderful-life-a-live-radio-play/

It’s a Wonderful Life A Live Radio Play Gallery

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Dominique Paul Noth served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blog here and here. For his Dom’s Snippets, a family history and memoir, go to domnoth.substack.com