Review: Warm ‘It’s a Wonderful Life: Live in Chicago!’ by American Blues Theater has always felt like home for the holidays
American Blues Theater’s annual old time radio-style staging of the classic movie screenplay “It’s a Wonderful Life” has been the warmest holiday show in town for some two decades now. On Saturday night, the experience was like jumping into a favorite mug of hot chocolate and then climbing back out via a peppermint stick.
Such was the mutual affection in the room.
One of the most-loved features of this show is audiograms from the studio audience: folks get to submit little telegram-style shouts outs that the cast then reads from the stage. For years, people have written about their love for their family or their closeness to their friends: On Saturday, one person even appeared to be telling their partner about a new pregnancy.
But what was different this year was how many people used that opportunity to thank American Blues itself and to say “well done” to this company for opening a small new theater at 5627 N. Lincoln Ave. in Chicago’s West Ridge neighborhood, to an Equity theater company that has somehow built its first permanent home even as many other theaters struggle to stay alive. With each congratulatory audiogram, the emotion on these actors’ faces grew ever more palpable. Performers such as Michael Mahler (also the musical director), Dara Cameron, Ian Paul Custer and Brandon Dahlquist (who plays the famed Jimmy Stewart role of George Bailey) have been doing this show for years, growing older with the text each holiday season. That I knew; what I learned Saturday night was how much of this audience also has been coming back every year, even though the actual show has moved around all over town, from North Center to Lakeview to Lincoln Park to Wicker Park — even as most of the creative team, including set designer Grant Sabin, has stayed the same.
This is the sixth venue (seven if you include the show’s incarnation on Zoom). But people go to theater for shows, not for buildings. And when they find something they love, they’re willing to travel. That’s also true for visitors. The cast solicits the home towns of the audience and there were people there from all over the country.
The narrative and emotional power of Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” hardly needs any further endorsement for me (I’ve reviewed this 90-minute show most years since 2004). Same for what it means to people at the holiday season. Suffice to say this is a concise but truly live and lovely adaptation. This piece now sits beautifully in American Blues’ new home, which features a wide stage and notably comfy seats and that this happy company has filled with the stuff of the season, decorative, edible and evocative of holidays past, present and hopefully stretching well into the future.
One last note. As I watched artistic director Wendy Whiteside’s production, I kept thinking Saturday of the Chicago actor John Mohrlein, who played the angel Clarence in this show for more than a decade and who died in 2021 at the age of 74. In its tribute that fall, the Chicago Reader used the apt headline “John Mohrlein’s wonderful life,” and most of the interviewed actors took their cue from the thing he enjoyed doing the most.
You surely can guess what that was. John would have liked the addition of the “going home” part.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Review: “It’s a Wonderful Life: Live in Chicago!” (3.5 stars)
When: Through Dec. 31
Where: American Blues Theater, 5627 N. Lincoln Ave.
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes (plus live preshow)
Tickets: $29.50-$69.50 at 773-654-3103 and americanbluestheater.com
