The Flatlands Theatre Company pulled off a Christmas miracle of its own this past weekend with the live online production of the radio drama version of It’s a Wonderful Life.

The Winkler-based theatre company had hoped to do the performance of Frank Capra’s 1946 holiday classic at the P.W. Enns Centennial Concert Hall, delivered like they would with their Something In The Park radio dramas involving people in costume and standing at microphones.

Those plans were cut from the script when the Southern Health region was moved to code red.

“Unfortunately we delved into a new world," said artistic director Jeanette Hoeppner. "We created a YouTube channel and did it all online. We had all our participants in their homes and came together through Zoom for the performance itself. I figured how to get that on to YouTube so we performed it live on Friday and Saturday. We also put those recordings on our YouTube channel so people can go there to watch it at anytime.”

“It was definitely different,” noted Hoeppner. “But it still allowed us to immerse ourselves into a story and into creating so that was an important part to those who were joining us as actors in that creative process but also that message of how important we all are to each other. How important we are in the world around us.”

It’s a Wonderful Like tells the story of George Bailey, a married father of four young children, who spent his entire life giving of himself to the people of Bedford Falls. A visit by his guardian angel Clarence on Christmas Eve helped George realize that he has had a wonderful life, did touch the lives of countless people and he'd be foolish to throw it all away.

“Just now, with being a little more isolated from even physically interacting with other people, it can seem a little daunting as to what’s the point of it,” Hoeppner said. “What’s the point of celebrating Christmas or some of those frustrations that people may be feeling right now.”

Hoeppner said they were left to wonder what would happen with the production after the region went to code red.

“The story is so important to remind us of our place in our world, in our families. Can we still do this? I’ll be honest, there were times when it was like – is it worth it? This is so much work to set this all up. Is it worth it? Yes, it is.”

A cast of 14 came together virtually to create It’s a Wonderful Life.

“We were trying to keep it as small as possible so we had a lot of people doing multiple voices,” said Hoeppner. “With it going on the radio we could potentially have done more, but that was okay. It was a great number to work with. It just had that joy of discovering for a lot of people as they played around with voices. We had minor changes in costumes as people went off-screen during the time they weren’t voicing for something and when they came back on, they changed a hat or took glasses off. I think some people had fun with that as well.”

Hoeppner also praised the work of local musicians Lindsay Rae and Hezekiah Hoeppner as well as cast member Darren Kehler who worked with a bunch of audio tracks and put all the cast's voices together to record a choir of Auld Lang Syne that comes at the end of the performance.

Now that the curtains been drawn on the Flatlands Theatre Company’s zoom production of It’s a Wonderful Life, Jeanette Hoeppner is looking forward to celebrating their Christmas miracle with her wonderful performers and everyone who had a hand in making the radio drama version of the film such a success.

“We’re hoping sometime in late spring that we’ll actually come together as a cast for the very first time and have a cast party way after the fact.”