Seattle Radio Theatre on KIRO Radio 97.3 FM

Now that the holidays have come and gone, I'm finally getting around to posting online audio of the December 13, 2013 live broadcast of Seattle Radio Theatre's production of It's A Wonderful Life from Town Hall Seattle. Our broadcast partner was KIRO Radio 97.3 FM, and we had our largest ever live audience (600+) and likely our largest radio audience, too. KIRO Radio was a fabulous partner--enthusiastically promoting the show, skillfully handling all the live broadcast engineering, and providing several talented actors.

Among the highlights this year was a four-piece orchestra, recruited and wrangled by Seattle Radio Theatre musical director Rob Jones to supplement his masterful keyboard work. The hope is that all subsequent productions will feature the newly-christened "Seattle Radio Theatre Orchestra"--after hearing what they added to the production, it'd be hard to go back!

In addition, Dave Ross' star-turn as both Clarence the Angel AND Mr. Potter was a treat, and it was great to have John Curley back playing George Bailey as he did for our inaugural live broadcast back in 2002 (it now feels to me that it was Jimmy Stewart who was doing a John Curley impersonation in the original film). Tom Tangney as George's father and Don O'Neill as Nick the Bartender rounded out the KIRO contingent.

And, of course, the dedicated and talented members of Seattle Radio Theatre delivered yet another solid performance--Tracey Conway as Mary Hatch, Jim Dever as Uncle Billy (and the bridge tender), John Maynard as the announcer, Chris Topping in several voice-bending roles, and Lee Callahan and Dolores Rogers. Curtis Takahashi delivered his usual knockout sound effects performance, and masterfully integrated an iPad for playback of a few key sounds on tape (ambient car interior, big splash). More details are included in the program, reproduced below.

Click here for complete audio of the show. There's also a short YouTube video of John Curley, Dave Ross and Tom Tangney rehearsing at KIRO a few days before the show (embedded above).