LAKEWOOD — Last year’s first-time experiment has become this year’s winter tradition as the Lakewood High School Drama group will present “It’s a Wonderful Life” for the second season in a row.
The cast of more than two dozen includes at least four actors who are younger than high school age, and is being assisted by six stage crew members, to produce 7 p.m. shows on the Fridays and Saturdays of Dec. 4-5 and 11-12.
Many of the actors were part of last year’s production, so in addition to differentiating themselves from the famous silver-screen versions of their characters, they’re also conscious about how their peers tackled those roles on the same stage.
Seniors Nikki Heitz and Kara Blackwood play George Bailey’s two love interests, the flirty Violet and his eventual wife Mary, and both studied the work of their predecessors.
Heitz admired the acting of the previous Violet, but wanted to make her “girlier” and rely more on “implied details” to carry the performance.
Blackwood made her Mary more “happy-go-lucky” than the previous versions, even as she kept the core of the character as a woman “who’s dedicated to her husband and willing to do anything for him.”
“I’m not normally flirtatious, so I had to learn the body language for that,” Heitz said.
Blackwood has likewise found the romantic aspect of her character the most challenging, since she “really has to show” Mary’s love for George.
Fellow senior Keegan Boris, who plays George, is likewise guided by what he deemed “the timeless spirit” of Jimmy Stewart’s performance.
“I carry the same attitude, although there are moments where I’m more comedic than how he was in the movie, which was very serious,” Boris said. “For a good half of the play, I have to play him as extremely depressed, so that’s hard to maintain.”
Senior Gavin Urquhart, who plays the villainous Mr. Potter, and junior Devin Smith, who plays kindly guardian angel Clarence, acknowledged that, as lean teenagers, they both differ greatly from the heavyset old men who originated their roles.
“We’ve definitely changed a lot of things from the original, which had an all-white cast,” Urquhart said. “We’ve reversed the genders of a few of the characters.
“Rather than playing Mr. Potter as really old and cranky, I’ve made him younger and more oily and slick, but still a sinister manipulator,” he added. “He doesn’t yell. He uses different techniques to get what he wants.”
Smith similarly tried to play Clarence closer to the movie version at first, before adopting his own approach, but he retained what he sees as the angel’s more important trait.
“The other characters are so serious that Clarence really stands out as the one lighthearted character,” Smith said. “It relieves the darkness of the rest of it a bit.”
All the cast members expressed confidence that audiences would enjoy what Urquhart called “a fresh take on a holiday classic.”
“It’s all about how the true spirit of the season is not about presents or money, but about friends and family and loved ones,” Boris said. “We had a great turnout the last time we did this, and I think it’ll be even better this time, because we’ve got an amazing cast.”
Ticket prices are $6 with ASB, $8 for general audiences and $5 for seniors and children under 10.
