Photo Flash: First Look at PlayMakers' IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE: A LIVE RADIO PlAY

This holiday season, PlayMakers Repertory Company will treat Triangle audiences to a family-friendly live version of a treasured holiday film with its production "It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play" by Joe Landry. PlayMakers, the professional theater in residence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will present "It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play" now through Dec. 16 in the Paul Green Theatre at UNC's Center for Dramatic Art on Country Club Road. Get a first look at the production in the photos below!

The entertainment begins with the theater transformed into a 1940s radio studio with the theater-goers as the live studio audience. A company of radio players take their places to perform the story of Frank Capra's award-winning "It's a Wonderful Life" as a Christmas Eve broadcast, along with music and sound effects, just as James Stewart, Donna Reed and other original cast members reprised their roles for the radio airwaves. Then, the PlayMakers actors step into the iconic scenes from Frank Capra's Christmas classic, assuming the roles of beloved characters George and Mary Bailey, Clarence the Angel, little Zuzu and other denizens of Bedford Falls.

PlayMakers' production of "It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play" is dedicated to the legacy of Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, a respected civic and philanthropic leader, who supported education, children's services, health care and the arts. She was a trustee of The Duke Endowment, serving as its first female chair, and a trustee of Duke University for 20 years.

Show times will be 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 8, and 2 p.m. Sundays. For a complete schedule, more information and to purchase tickets, call (919) 962-PLAY (7529) or visit www.playmakersrep.org. Tickets are $15 to $50.

Photo Credit: Jon Gardiner