About the Project . . .
Weiner High School Gifted and Talented students performed the stage version of the Christmas favorite, “It’s a Wonderful Life!,” at the school cafeteria December 11th at 2:00 PM, December 12th at 6:30 PM, and at a December 13th performance for students. Admission to the public performances was $5 per person, with proceeds
going to the local “Toys for Tots” program—the performance for students was free.
The play follows Frank Capra's classic drama about George Bailey, the eternally-in-debt guiding force of a bank in the typical American small town of Bedford Falls. As the play opens, it's Christmas Eve, 1946, and George, who has long considered himself a failure, faces financial ruin and arrest and is seriously contemplating suicide. High above Bedford Falls, two celestial voices discuss Bailey's dilemma and decide to send down eternally bumbling angel Clarence Oddbody, who after 200 years has yet to earn his wings, to help George out. But first, the audience is given a crash course on George's life, and the multitude of selfless acts he has performed:
rescuing his younger brother from drowning and losing his hearing; enduring a beating rather than allow a grieving druggist to deliver poison by mistake to an ailing child; foregoing college and a long-planned trip to Europe to keep the Bailey Building and Loan from letting its Depression-era customers down; and, most important, preventing town despot Henry Potter from taking over Bedford Mills and reducing its inhabitants to penury.
Along the way, George has married his childhood sweetheart Mary), who has stuck by him through thick and thin. But even the love of Mary and his children are
insufficient when George, faced with an $8000 shortage in his books, becomes a likely candidate for prison thanks to the vengeful Potter. Bitterly, George declares that he wishes that he had never been born, and Clarence, hoping to teach George a lesson, shows him how different life would have been had he in fact never been born. After a nightmarish odyssey through a George Bailey-less Bedford Falls (now a glorified slum called Potterville), wherein none of his friends or family recognize him, George is made to realize how many lives he has touched, and helped, through his existence; and, just as Clarence had planned, George awakens to the fact that, despite all its deprivations, he has truly had a wonderful life.
going to the local “Toys for Tots” program—the performance for students was free.
The play follows Frank Capra's classic drama about George Bailey, the eternally-in-debt guiding force of a bank in the typical American small town of Bedford Falls. As the play opens, it's Christmas Eve, 1946, and George, who has long considered himself a failure, faces financial ruin and arrest and is seriously contemplating suicide. High above Bedford Falls, two celestial voices discuss Bailey's dilemma and decide to send down eternally bumbling angel Clarence Oddbody, who after 200 years has yet to earn his wings, to help George out. But first, the audience is given a crash course on George's life, and the multitude of selfless acts he has performed:
rescuing his younger brother from drowning and losing his hearing; enduring a beating rather than allow a grieving druggist to deliver poison by mistake to an ailing child; foregoing college and a long-planned trip to Europe to keep the Bailey Building and Loan from letting its Depression-era customers down; and, most important, preventing town despot Henry Potter from taking over Bedford Mills and reducing its inhabitants to penury.
Along the way, George has married his childhood sweetheart Mary), who has stuck by him through thick and thin. But even the love of Mary and his children are
insufficient when George, faced with an $8000 shortage in his books, becomes a likely candidate for prison thanks to the vengeful Potter. Bitterly, George declares that he wishes that he had never been born, and Clarence, hoping to teach George a lesson, shows him how different life would have been had he in fact never been born. After a nightmarish odyssey through a George Bailey-less Bedford Falls (now a glorified slum called Potterville), wherein none of his friends or family recognize him, George is made to realize how many lives he has touched, and helped, through his existence; and, just as Clarence had planned, George awakens to the fact that, despite all its deprivations, he has truly had a wonderful life.
Check out the video clips from the play! (***NONE of these G.T. students would have had the opportunity to take a Drama class due to heavy course loads. What a shame... G.T. can give them that opportunity and allows them the luxury of discovering another side to their talents.)
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The following is the video we showed on the big screen before the play began. The music is "My Wild Irish Rose" which is the song Burl (pictured below as Uncle Billy) sang before George and Mary's wedding.
Look through the play photographs and download your favorites!
