Worlwide acclaim as EIGHTH annual benefit production of "It's a Wonderful Life" woos audiences.

 
Picture the scene: It's the mid-1940s and television had not yet been invented. No computers, no video games, no cell-phones. And audiences gather around the "wireless" to listen to the Christmas play.

Such was the situation on the evenings of December 16th and 17th 2016 as audiences across North America and around the world plugged into their 21st-century computers to listen to The NOLA Voice Talent Foundation's eighth annual production of "It's a Wonderful Life", performed for two nights at Gretna Cultural Center for the Arts on New Orleans' West Bank.

In front of enthralled live audiences, professional voice-over actors, stage and move actors, and even a couple of professional singers, re-lived the demise of the hapless George Bailey in a radio-play version of the ever-popular Frank Capra movie, penned by the production's Director Vatican Lokey and broadcast worldwide by WGSO990am (Friday 16th) and the Brian "Hammer" Jackson Show (Saturday 17th).

And the performers made magnificent work of the art of voice-acting, with Bill Lee as George Bailey (an ever-present in the annual production since its inauguration in 2009), Erynne Elkins as Mary Hatch Bailey, Jackson Townsend as the conniving Henry Potter, and the show's producer Stephen James as the Angel Clarence; all supported by a versatile cast and an amazing sound-effects table led by Beverly Brooks.

For full list of cast and crew please click here

And the venue was perfect. It's a Wonderful Life was part of the first Christmas program to be held by Gretna Cultural Center for the Arts since its official opening in September having been tastefully transformed from the former Main Post Office in Gretna.

With the theater laid out in studio-in-the-round format, everyone in the audience had a perfect view of how a radio-play is put together. There is every reason to believe that GCCA will be a hugely-popular venue for the burgeoning Arts activities on the West Bank.

For those of you who couldn't make this recent performance, you missed a spectacle that only seems to get better year on year. You must make sure you bring the family to the 2017 production, provisionally scheduled for December 15th and 16th December (7pm). So mark your New Year calendars now!

More about the venue by CLICKING HERE

Nominated charity for the NVT 2016 Benefit Production of "It's a Wonderful Life": The Louisiana chapter of The Children's Tumor Foundation, for Neurofibromatosis support (Baton Rouge, LA.) www.ctf.org/Chapters-Affiliates/Louisiana/

Steven Waldron Superintendent of Angels
 
Above, left to right: Mitchell Courville (Toll Taker), Bill Lee (George Bailey. Stephen James (Angel Clarence) in the opening night of "It's a Wonderful Life" at Gretna Cultural Center for the Arts, December 16th 2016.
Bill Lee (George Bailey) and Erynne Elknis (Mary Hatch Bailey) perform an excerpt from this year's production of "It's a Wonderful Life" at the recent 2016 NVT/BAG Awards.
Photo: Viking Multimedia
Jackson Townsend Henry Potter