Governors State University’s annual radio play “It’s a Wonderful Life” took place on Saturday, Dec. 13 in Sherman Hall, for two showing times: 2 and 7:30 p.m. The show consisted of 11 actors who played 44 characters, with set design and audio elements to portray an inspiring winter holiday and a tale of kindness, support, and appreciation of life.

A hopeful play about honesty, character, and gratefulness during the winter holiday, the show begins with a narrator and Clarence, who is a guardian angel of a man named George Bailey. Clarence is told that he must save George Bailey, and the narrator embarks on the story of Bailey’s life.

Bailey has dreams of leaving his town and attending college but eventually must stay to help with his father’s business. This begins a series of events that lead to Bailey staying in his hometown and building the life he once thought he did not want. However, during a pivotal moment regarding his career, Bailey loses sight of the joy in his life.

Resembling a traditional radio broadcast, cast members sang advertisements during intermission. Catchy songs about Old National Bank, a Governors State’s program, and Westside Children’s therapy were humorously and well sung to entertain the audience during the intermission. Messages written by the audience also were read out by the radio hosts. Before the show began, people had the option to write a message on an index card as they scanned their tickets to enter. Water and cookies were also offered to the audience free of charge.

A radio show typically relies on body language, voice pitch and accents, and audio elements for expression of the story. On stage, sound was created with buckets of water to resemble sledding, a roll of paper that sounded like wind, an occasional slammed door, and a car horn.

Some people attending the show felt that the voice actors did an incredible job embodying the characters they played through voice acting and mannerisms. A student said, “The actor playing George Bailey does a really good job at changing voices.”

Another mentioned, “To me what I really love was the voice acting. The actor playing George Bailey does a good job with voice acting. I just love how his voice mannerisms are on point, just well done. I’m very impressed with everyone’s voice acting, the actors are playing multiple characters and can change in the moment.” The student also was impressed by how often the actor for Bailey was not reading from the book, “He’s on cue and has a good delivery.”

Others felt that the singing was also impressive, along with the acting.

Maya Shelton, the actress who played Violet, has played in two productions of “It’s A Wonderful Life.” Shelton has been acting in GovState productions since 2016, and finds the practice of changing characters throughout the show amusing.

“I work really hard to make sure that each person has a little something different about them, if I can do an accent, or pitch my voice up and down. Even as Violet, over the years from when she was a child to an adult, I tried to pitch my voice down as she aged to represent puberty.” She said.

When asked about voice and how it’s used for storytelling in a radio play adaptation, she agreed that voice is the main element. “It’s going to do a lot of the work for you, because you don’t have costumes to signify different people. You know, like a hat to tell the audience you’re someone different. But in a radio play, it’s all vocal, and a little body language.”

Shelton explained that they wanted something to accompany the voice acting so the audiences could have something to watch, “We wanted to give them something interesting to listen to but to watch as well. We did a bit of blocking, body movement, and facial expression.”

Overall, the show did an incredible job using voice, body language, and audio elements to portray an engaging story that was thematic for the winter holidays.