TROY — A Wonderful Life, a tale of accepting life choices and realizing the importance of family and community, has become a Christmas classic.

The New York State Theatre Institute is reprising the musical adaptation of Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life with old standbys and new talent.
The Capra film is beautiful, says Timothy Booth, who plays the everyman hero, George Bailey. The script is very much like the musical production, he says. "There’s very little in the movie that’s not in the script."

He feels the difference between the film and NYSTI’s production is that the musical is more accessible to the audience.
"You actually get to see the struggle outside of celluloid," Booth said. "Anyone who loves the film will not be disappointed."

During rehearsal, Director Patricia Di Benedetto Snyder sits a few rows back from the stage, leaning forward in her chair, focusing intensely on the stage where Booth and veteran NYSTI actor, Joel Aroeste, playing Uncle Billy, rehearse a scene.

George Bailey, sitting in his office at his building and loan business, is awaiting Uncle Billy’s return. He has entrusted Uncle Billy with a check for $8,000, and sent him to the bank. When Uncle Billy returns, the situation turns dire. The check is gone, and Uncle Billy doesn’t know where it went.
"I should have my head examined, George. Did you give me the money"" Uncle Billy asks.

Uncle Billy, befuddled and fearful, is prodded by George.
"Did you see anyone"" George asks. "Did you talk to anyone""

George grabs Uncle Billy, tries to calm him down, asks him if he’s been drinking, and, after calming him down, asks Uncle Billy to retrace his steps.

While re-examining his actions, Uncle Billy reveals that, while he was at the bank, he talked to Potter, the corrupt banker in town. With this, George’s and Uncle Billy’s worst fears are realized.
"One of us is going to jail, and it isn’t going to be me," George shouts, before storming off the stage.

After rehearsing, Booth, Aroeste, and Di Benedetto Snyder, revisit the movements of the scene. As they strive to perfect it and make it run more smoothly, they focus on multiple elements — line delivery, staging, timing, inflection, volume.

Booth doesn’t feel right about the amount of time he’s spending in the chair behind the desk.
"It’s déjà vu. We’ve had this problem before," Di Benedetto Snyder says.

Booth and Aroeste then perform the scene in slow motion, moving around the desk at center stage slowly, speaking each line precisely, while hunting for the missing piece.
"I’m missing a cross," Booth says.

Booth then moves around the desk at center stage, slowly speaks his lines to himself, concurring with the actor beside him, while searching for the missing element of the scene. Di Benedetto Snyder waits patiently until Booth makes his discovery.
"Shall we take it from the top again"" Di Benedetto then asks.
"Yep. Yep," Booth replies.

College and high school interns come and go, making Schacht Theatre on the Russell Sage College campus, a bustling hive of activity; some sit in the auditorium seats, scripts propped on their laps, as they follow the scene being rehearsed; one intern fills in on stage for Sophie Whiteman, a six-year-old first-grader at Voorheesville Elementary School who will play Bailey’s daugher, Zuzu.
"Sing me to sleep, Daddy," Zuzu says.

Bailey begins to sing her a lullaby, which turns from a tranquil, touching moment between father and daughter into a song of self-pity and regret, and, ultimately, a plea for God to give him direction.
"After 20 precious years, what did he have to show" Precious little," Booth sings.
George Bailey, who once had hopes to be an architect and get far from Bedford Falls, is no longer the comforting father, but an individual claiming, "All my precious plans fell through."
"I missed the boat," he sings. He then prays, "Dear God, I’m not a church-going man"Help me. Show me the way. If you’re up there, if you can hear me, show me the way."

George Bailey’s prayer is heard in heaven, and eventually, with the help of Clarence Oddbody, an apprentice angel trying to earn his wings, he finds happiness and, ultimately, realizes what is important.

Director and leading man
"I can’t imagine doing the show without him. He is George," Di Benedetto says of Booth.
Booth considers the role of George Bailey a "dream role."
"It’s huge," he said, "playing the everyman."

Booth, no stranger to the role of George Bailey, also played Fred Gailey in NYSTI’s three productions of Miracle on 34th Street. Booth, who lives in Yonkers (Westchester County), played at NYSTI in 1999 in Around the World in 80 Days, and starred in television commercials for Union Savings Bank in Connecticut. He also performed with the national tour and Broadway productions of Mamma Mia!
"I’ve done it all," Booth said. "I’ve played a smarmy director, a clown, a card player."

Booth, who recently understudied the three father characters in Mamma Mia!, said he is now moving into adult, leading-man roles.
Booth and Di Benedetto Snyder, after finishing the first half of the day’s rehearsal, appear at ease with one another and their progress. Though they have worked together many times, and recreated Bedford Falls and the characters before, the cast continually adjusts to make the production, as Booth said, "flow like silk," have "a freight-train feel" and "move seamlessly."
"You really are creating a movie on stage," Booth said.

Booth said that his character continually affects the world around him. Houses and parks are erected within the town, which were created by his doing. Eventually, that reality is changed. A nightmare occurs on stage, and Mr. Potter, the greedy slumlord who owns half the town, takes over everything.
"It’s darker, and seedier," Booth said of the sequence.
"The reality for George: He’s literally taken by the angel and removed from the history of the world," he said. "He becomes a street walker. His uncle takes over the building and loan business. There’s a slum instead of Bailey Park.
"George has to say on his own, ‘I want this life.’ He has to realize what is good — family and life and love," Booth said.

Newfound perspective

Catherine LaValle is reprising her role as Bailey’s wife; she last played the part in the 1998 NYSTI production. LaValle has worked more in Troy than anywhere else and feels at home working at NYSTI.
"It’s like family," LaValle said of the NYSTI staff.
"Tim is a good friend of mine," she said of her on-stage husband.
"Patricia is like another mom," she said of the director. "She’s not old enough to be my mom," she laughed.
"When we met, there was an instant connection," LaValle said of meeting Di Benedetto Snyder.
The two, she said, have continued to stay in touch throughout the years. "I love to work with Patricia," she added

No stranger to the stage, LaValle has performed and been an understudy on Broadway in The Sound of Music, Light in the Piazza, and The Scarlet Pimpernel. At NYSTI, she has appeared in Master Class and Magna Carta. She said the role of Mary Hatch is quite different from others she has played.
"I’ve never acted in a love story with someone on a downward spiral to suicide," she said.

A Wonderful Life, she said, shows six disparate days in the life of George Bailey, but, in those six days, the audience sees growth. She added that the story shows progression over the years and the fabric of their marriage.
"It’s shows the growth and the change. It shows the journey of a marriage," LaValle said.

LaValle added that most roles include a boy meeting a girl, falling in love, losing the girl, and much being left up to the audience.

LaValle was recently engaged and said that her perspective on A Wonderful Life has changed.

Her soon-to-be, real-life husband lives in San Diego, and is leaving his consulting job and life there to move to New York.
"We’re scrambling for money to move," she said.
LaValle said that the connection and interdependency on stage between George and Mary is similar to her real-life experience. LaValle pointed to her character and said, "She gives George money for the bank and his predicament." Lavalle added that this was an act of empowerment in a marital relationship.
"His fortune is my fortune. His misfortune is my misfortune," LaValle said of her real-life love interest. She added that playing Mary Hatch was "very appropriate."

Bedford Falls

The set, designed by Victor Becker, is very basic, Di Benedetto Snyder said. As the show begins, the set is bare, and, as the story unfolds, the stage takes shape from scene to scene, and bits of the town are added as time passes by.
"It rains on stage," Booth said.
"It snows on stage," Di Benedetto Snyder added. "There isn’t a swimming pool," Di Benedetto Snyder said and laughed. Di Benedetto Snyder was referring to the famous scene from the film in which, during a school dance, the gym floor splits open, exposing a pool beneath, and George and Mary dance close to its edge, before falling in.

Afterwards, George and Mary are walking home, with George wearing a football uniform and Mary a bathrobe, both "borrowed" from the school locker room.

The NYSTI set has a mesmerizing effect — a rising, spiral with many entrances and exits for the players.

As Bedford Falls is influenced by George Bailey, houses, signs, and parks spring up. The set is a place where the characters move between the real world and heaven, Booth said.

Di Benedetto Snyder pointed out George’s waning aspiration to be an architect. The stage, which appears to be a tunnel, works on many fronts.

Bedford Falls becomes a nightmare that is Pottersville. Master electrician Matt Murphy, busy assembling lights with high school interns Sam Crevatas and Brian Novak, said that, when lighting for a nightmare scene, everything must be reversed.
"You light opposite of how it would normally look," Murphy said. He creates the nightmare effect by lighting with halogen and green lights located on the edge of the stage, beneath the actors, rather than from above.

The cast consists of almost 50 actors, but, Booth said, because of the multiple dress changes, it seems more like 150.
"The whole show is a freight train," Booth said. George Bailey, he said, feels as though the world is happening to him, and he feels put upon. His feelings and perceptions, George created on his own, said Booth. There is a progression of his feelings, which, without Clarence, the angel, to show him his way, could lead to disaster and death.

***

A Wonderful Life is performing Dec. 1 through Dec. 16 at the Schacht Fine Arts Theatre on The Russell Sage College campus in Troy. Friday and Saturday performances, Dec. 8, 9, 15, and 16, are at 8 p.m. Sunday performances, Dec. 3 and 10, are at 2 p.m. Weekday performances — Dec. 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, and 14 — are at 10 a.m.

Weekday performances are open to the public and school classes. Group rates are available.

The cost for the show is $20 for adults, $16 for senior citizens and students, and $10 for children 12 and younger.

NYSTI is donating hundreds of tickets for performances to children and families associated with the Northeast Parent and Child Society.

For further information, or to order tickets, visit NYSTI online at www.nysti.org or call 274-3256.

Dedicated to Raposo

A Wonderful Life is dedicated to composer Joe Raposo, who worked closely with the New York State Theatre Institute over the years. Raposo co-produced The All-Time Good-Time Knickerbocker Follies, and composed the musical Rag Dolly, which toured in Moscow in 1986. A later version of Rag Dolly went to Washington, D.C. and opened on Broadway as Raggedy Ann.

Raposo was one of the creators of Sesame Street and wrote music for Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Ray Charles, Woody Allen, Kermit the Frog, and Dr. Seuss.
He earned five Grammy awards and gold and platinum records for the songs, "Sing," "It’s Not Easy Being Green," "Here’s to the Winners," and "You Will Be My Music."