Thursday, November 29, through Sunday, December 2
Prospect Park Auditorium, 1584 34th Avenue, Moline IL
With its latest musical described by Bold Life magazine as “some kind of wonderful” and by the Asheville Citizen-Times as “an old-fashioned holiday greeting card come to life,” Quad City Music Guild brings a timeless holiday treat to the stage in its November 29 through December 2 run of Miracle in Bedford Falls, a brand-new theatrical imagining of the Frank Capra classic It's a Wonderful Life.
Capra's 1947 film, the Hollywood landmark and TV perennial starring James Stewart and Donna Reed, takes center stage in this new musical entertainment with a book by Mark Cabaniss and music and lyrics by Lowell Alexander. As Miracle in Bedford Falls opens, our hero George Bailey has spent his entire life giving of himself to the people of Bedford Falls and watching his dreams of travel and adventure pass him by. Despite having a loving wife and children, George believes that life has not been kind, and with a scandal looming, the man plans to end his life on Christmas Eve. Enter Clarence, a guardian angel who shows George what the world would have been like if he’d never been born. As the Citizen-Times wrote of this charming, funny, and tune-filled musical, “It's risky business taking such a beloved film and bringing it to life, but this show pulls it off with heartwarming success, adding effective original songs and dance along the way.”
Serving as Miracle in Bedford Falls' director is Music Guild veteran John Weigandt, whose previous productions for the theatre have included such producions as My Favorite Year and the holiday presentation A Christmas Survival Guide. Patrick Downing, who portrayed Inspector Javert in Music Guild's 2014 Les Misérables, plays George Bailey, with Megan Warren as George's wife Mary and Steve Trainor as the angel Clarence Oddbody.
More than two dozen additional area talents, meanwhile, compose the show's ensemble: Roger Akers, Victoria Beale, Crystal Clark, Evan Clark, Lydia Clark, Lillian Cobert, Jordan Dodd, Lillian Fincher, Susan Granet, Tyler Henning, Melodie Hoffman, Alex King, Breanna Maddelein, Gillian McMahon, Stevee Morehead, Terri Nelson, John Donald O'Shea, Jackie Patterson, Eva Powell, Michael Schmidt, Jack Strenlaw, George Swift, Joseph Thomas, Philip Tunnicliff, Thomas Weigandt, and Amber Whitaker.
Miracle in Bedford Falls runs November 29 through December 2 with performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $11-16, and more information and tickets are available by calling (309)762-0330 or visiting QCMusicGuild.com.
