Interview: Giovanna Sardelli of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE: A LIVE RADIO PLAY at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley Believes We Can All See Ourselves in This Timeless Tale

In these trying times, it can seem harder than ever to find some genuine holiday spirit. You know - the kind that brings us all together and celebrates the best of what we can be. Well, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley aims to deliver just that with its new production of It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play. This heartwarming holiday production has been re-envisioned by playwright Joe Landry from the beloved 1946 Frank Capra film as a 1940s-era radio play, complete with live foley-style sound effects. The multi-talented and multi-cultural cast of five nimble actors takes on dozens of roles and provides all of the live sound effects, immersing audiences in George Bailey's timeless tale of love, loss, and redemption on Christmas Eve in the town of Bedford Falls.

As directed by Giovanna Sardelli, this production presents a more expansive view of Bedford Falls so that it is more closely mirrors the diversity to be found in our communities today. As Sardelli says, "For people who maybe have not seen themselves reflected in the story before, we as a company really wanted to extend an invitation for everyone to come share in this story." It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play will be presented December 1-26, 2021 at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto, CA. For those who are unable to attend in person, remote access will also be available starting December 7 via Video on Demand. For tickets and additional information, visit TheatreWorks.org.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Sardelli, who also serves as TheatreWorks Artistic Associate and Director of New Works, last week while she was in the thick of rehearsals. We talked about how much the Capra film meant to her as the child of an immigrant father, how important it was to her that the world of Bedford Falls look like the multi-cultural world we actually live in, and just how darned much fun she and the cast were having in rehearsals. Sardelli is very easy to talk to and manifests an irrepressible belief in our common humanity which, come to think of it, is downright Capra-esque. The following conversation has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

I've been wanting to talk to you about It's a Wonderful Life for a couple of years now, ever since it was first announced for the TheatreWorks season back in pre-COVID times. What has kept you championing this particular show as schedules were constantly being reshuffled?

Well, it's such a beautiful story. What I love about it is not only does it offer healing, it offers a roadmap to healing. It offers very gentle, clear instructions about caring for each other, caring for our community. And I knew that the foley aspect of it, watching 5 actors bring the entire world of Bedford Falls to life, would be fun in and of itself. It just felt to me like if you're not going to do Christmas Carol, then why not tell one of the greatest holiday stories of our time?

Thank you for not doing another Christmas Carol! I feel like that's already so well covered by other theater companies.

That's how I feel, too. And what's so great about Joe Landry's radio play version of It's a Wonderful Life is there's so much flexibility and freedom around the story that you're able to make it your own. We're able to theatricalize some things in the play that might not be expected of a traditional radio play, and that's really fun.

How are you approaching it as a director? Like, without giving too much away, how are you gonna pull off things like the swimming pool scene?

Well, OK, that one's not in the script. Joe Landry apparently was like "No one can do that!" But now that I've been working with the foley, I'm thinking we could pull it off! There's an extended dinner scene that is really interesting to work on because you have to create a world, and also use the sounds of that dinner as an underscoring to the emotional content. Every crowd scene is just remarkable, you know with doors opening, closing, trying to create the sense that there are 10, 20 people in a room. Those scenes are really, really fun.

I would imagine another challenge in directing this play is to keep its human heart intact so that it doesn't just become a series of gags.

Exactly!

Capra's style was sometimes derided as "Capra-corn," but I think his best films still hold up specifically because he truly believed in the world his films depicted, that at the end of the day people really can band together and be a force for good. In today's ever more polarized world, how do you keep that sensibility intact and make it feel authentic?

In some ways, I think this script may be one of the easier ones because of why Capra wanted to do it, and when he wanted to do it. He and Jimmy Stewart were both veterans of World War II, and we now know that they would have had PTSD, but they didn't have a name for it in the day. Stewart gave up acting after the war because he didn't understand the purpose, he didn't know why. Capra called him and said, "I think I have a story you'll want to tell." And Stewart said, "No." Jimmy Stewart thought if he wanted to do anything, it would be a comedy, but then he didn't feel inspired by comedies. Then Capra said, "I have this story. It's about a man who's in so much despair he considers ending his life." And Stewart said, "Now, you're talking." Because they both recognized that the entire country was in pain, much like we are now. And that's why I think it resonates so much more today.

I think this has so much heart and there's real despair on display, in moments. It doesn't live there, because everyone is rallying around trying to make sure that they take care of the person in despair. But we really, really are attentive to that in our telling of the story. Yes, there's so much fun. I mean, every moment that's fun in the movie is made more fun by watching actors bring it to life. But the moments where the heart of the story lives, we're taking great care to make sure those don't get lost in ... shenanigans! [laughs]

As heartwarming as the story ultimately is, what I'm struck by when I watch the movie now is how Jimmy Stewart plumbs such emotional depths.

Well, he had them to plumb, and I think that that's what makes George Bailey such a beautiful, relatable character. We think of It's a Wonderful Life as so sweet, but George Bailey in his desperation does a few things that are reprehensible, and some would say unforgiveable. The greatest act of the play is forgiveness, is accepting the complexities of human beings and that even the best of us is not perfect.

The film has become such a cultural touchstone over the decades that we all have our own connections to it. How did you first experience it?

Oh, my goodness ... I can't remember the when of it, but it was a movie that we as a family would watch. I mean, I'm old enough that you used to have to plan your holiday viewing, you know?

That was a big deal back in the day.

It was! And what I loved, and this is something I miss, it was also really a fantastic community moment. Everybody was going home because at 8pm this movie was going to be shown (totally outing myself here on age!). It really was special, and what I loved about it was everybody found a way they see themselves in the story. My dad is an immigrant, and the values espoused in this movie are what attracted him to America. My mom is from Oklahoma and she saw the people from her small town in it - the pride, the decency, the goodness, the community, the acceptance. (You know, Jimmy Stewart talked about how we've got to find a better expression, we can't keep calling people "the common man." There's nothing common about anyone. We should come up with a phrase that has more dignity.)

And so for both of them it was such a beautiful movie about the best America can be. I loved that, that these two people from such different experiences loved what they saw in this movie, and felt they both saw themselves in it. That's special.

And Capra himself was an immigrant from Sicily. Where is your dad from?

My dad is Italian, but he was actually born and raised in Brazil. We call him "extra-special Italian." [laughs] He's full-blooded, multi-generational Italian, but culturally Brazilian. Being an immigrant, he took us to the Statue of Liberty when I was a little kid, and he would talk about what that meant to him. Or when we went to Washington D.C. and the Lincoln Memorial. Just having a father whose love of America - the most aspirational, the best of who we can be - was something I feel really fortunate about.

When I look back on all the plays you've directed over the years, plus the countless others you've championed as Director of New Works for TheatreWorks, it's a super eclectic list in terms of style and subject matter. I can't find a natural commonality there. So how would you describe your taste in theater?

I love theatrical stories that are driven through character, and that have some magical aspect to them, that have some heightened something. I think the reason my tastes are eclectic is partly because storytelling is such an important part of my family. A few years ago, my Brazilian family came to visit us for the holidays and there are multiple storytellers on both sides of my family. It was amazing. While only my father and one cousin are fluent in both Portuguese and English, we told so many stories. We were able to communicate because it was part charades, part just a love of language and a desire to connect and communicate. So I've always believed in the power of stories to transcend cultural and linguistic barriers, and that we see ourselves in each other, in well-told stories.

And I do want to say we've looked at making Bedford Falls more inclusive, as reflected in our storytelling and in our casting, because we believe in our hearts that that's what Bedford Falls would have grown up to be. For people who maybe have not seen themselves reflected in the story before, we as a company really wanted to extend an invitation for everyone to come share in this story.

I'm happy to hear that you're broadening your vision of Bedford Falls. I happened to grow up in a small town in Iowa that looked not unlike the Bedford Falls of the movie version, and I know that even my little hometown today is so much more diverse than it was back then.

Right? And it's amazing when we're sitting around with our cast, to hear everyone talk about this story and what it meant to them. It's really powerful. So the story should reflect what America looks like now. It just makes sense. It doesn't feel like commentary, it feels like an accurate depiction of our communities. This is what a community should look like - and does look like, in fact.

I'm so excited to tell this story for the people who love it, who know it. I think they'll come and see the story they love. But we also think of all the little kids or anybody who's never seen this before, and we're telling it fresh and anew for them. I want to make sure whoever sees it loves it in the way that was intended.