Matthew McGee inhabits American Stage’s ‘Wonderful Life’

Welcome to Bedford Falls. Population: Matthew McGee.

The hardest-working actor in Tampa Bay has his holiday-season work cut out for him in American Stage’s Wonderful Life, an adaptation of the beloved Frank Capra movie It’s a Wonderful Life.

It’s a one-man show, in that McGee plays 15 characters.

Not all at once, you understand. Wonderful Life – the adaptation is by American Stage producing director Helen R. Murray, and Jason Lott – is not a dizzy, fast-paced satire with McGee-as-somebody having back-and-forth repartee with somebody else. It is, the actor says, true to the spirit of the characters, and their dreams and desires, as they appeared in the screenplay by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett and director Capra.

“It’s a series of monologues, a series of moments,” says McGee, who calls it a “pop-up reading” (he’ll have script in hand). “There’s part of it that feels as if it’s directly from the movie, but there’s also these interesting ways they’ve co-adapted, where it feels like they were able to say something in a way they weren’t able to in the film. More personal.”

Although each character has his or her own voice, McGee explains, “one of the things I really want to avoid is caricatures. I’ve played Clarence onstage in It’s a Wonderful Life, so he’s like a warm, fuzzy blanket, but some of the characters will be a definite challenge.”

For the three or four people who’ve never seen the classic 1946 film, Clarence Oddbody is an angel who’s directed by God (or, at least, by a deep, friendly voice in the Milky Way) to show George Bailey, who’s having a life crisis, what the world would be like had he never been born.

Hint: Not so great.

The other majors – all embodied by McGee – include the town villain Henry F. Potter, George’s doting wife Mary, his daffy Uncle Billy, war hero brother Harry Bailey, town flirt Violet Bick and plastics-industry titan Sam “Hee-Haw” Wainwright.

“I’ve always felt,” McGee says, “aside from an actor, a drag performer or the other monikers people want to put on there, I’m a storyteller first. I’ve never been pretentious when it comes to theater. I’ve always believed that theater is this kind of unique way of getting people together to hear stories.

“And I approach it from ‘I’m going to do the best I can telling this story,’ with whatever tricks I have to use.”

A longtime film buff, McGee is an avowed It’s a Wonderful Life aficionado. “I can’t get through reading it without getting choked up,” he says of the new script. “Because the story has always really affected me.”

American Stage and Murray, who’s directing, are trying something new with Wonderful Life – rather than performing on the mainstage, McGee is going on the road (the road that leads through St. Pete and into Gulfport) for nine shows.

Here’s the schedule:

Dec 15, 7 p.m. at Coastal Creative

Dec. 16, 8 p.m. at thestudio@620

Dec. 17, 2 and 8 p.m. at The James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art

Dec. 18, 2 p.m. at The James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art

Dec. 22, 7 p.m.at Catherine A. Hickman Theater (Gulfport)

Dec. 23, 8 p.m. at Catherine A. Hickman Theater (Gulfport)

Dec. 24, 2 and 8 p.m. at Catherine A Hickman Theater (Gulfport)

McGee is coming off one of his busiest-ever performing years. And The Night Before, the holiday play he wrote for freeFall Theatre, is doing great business in its second annual go-round (it runs through Dec. 24).

“Things kind of slow down in January and February,” he reports, “just enough time for me to grow a moustache and mutton chops for Baskerville.”

In freeFall’s March/April production, he’ll play Dr. Watson to Eric Davis’ Sherlock Holmes.

“There’s a Holmes and a Watson,” McGee says, “and then there’s three other people who play everything else.” It is, he promises, “a lot of fun.”

Find all information and tickets for Wonderful Life here.