It’s been a bit chilly in recent days on the Oregon Coast, frosted rooftops, icy white grass, a decided snap to the air — all making the possibility of the winter white stuff not so much of a stretch. But whether the weather creates a little wintry ambiance or not, these three theater groups will be setting a holiday stage.  

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In Nehalem, the Riverbend Players are offering for the sixth time It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play by Joe Landry. 

This makes three performances in the play for Frank Squillo, president of the Riverbend board of directors and director of the production. “We transport back to 1947 as if it is the original broadcast,” Squillo said. “Everyone dresses in 1947 period garb.”

It’s not so different from what audiences would have seen in 1947 – but back then, there would have been both the live audience, plus millions tuned to their radios, Squillo said.  On stage, along with the actors, there are the Foley artists – the sound effects specialists who create the sounds listeners would have heard on the radio broadcast.

“If you have a door opening and closing, car horns beeping, telephones ringing, the splashing when Clarence jumps off the bridge, we create all those sound effects live on stage,” Squillo said. “It’s fun to watch that happen as well as actors playing their parts.”

While it’s fun to watch the old-style show, there are other reasons theater people enjoy taking part in live radio-style shows. Actors have the script right in front of them, and there is none of the traditional blocking used in a typical stage play.

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But also, Squillo said, “Doing a radio play encourages other people that might be a little gun-shy in trying to do full-fledged stage play, so it opens up opportunities. It encourages those who might have trouble memorizing lines. You still have to perform but you have the luxury of a script before you and you don’t have to memorize.”

This cast has 14 actors doing about 44 different voices, but three actors do only one each – George Bailey, Mary Bailey and Clarence the Angel. Squillo plays Potter and a few others.

“You could technically do this play with five people; everyone would have to do eight or nine voices,” Squillo said. “But you have the luxury of casting as many as you want to. It really gives a lot of other people an opportunity.

“It may seem like, ‘Why would you go watch that?’ but it’s really entertaining to watch. My professional career was in radio and television. For me directing a radio play is more personal, it’s even more intimate for me.”

 It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, runs through Dec. 22 with showtimes on Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Tickets are on sale at RiverbendPlayers.org., by calling the box office at (503) 298-5467 or at the door.

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In Cannon Beach, the Coaster Theatre Playhouse  presents Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. It’s the first time for the performance since 2013, though theater executive director Patrick Lathrop suspects they won’t wait so long to do the Christmas classic again. “It’s really popular,” Lathrop said. “It’s got a lot of nostalgia, and that’s what we look for for our holiday show.”

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The play is based on the Paramount Pictures film, and revolves around WWII veterans Bob Wallace and Phil Davis, who have a successful song-and-dance act. “With romance in mind, the two follow a duo of beautiful singing sisters en route to their Christmas show at a Vermont lodge, which just happens to be owned by Bob and Phil’s former army commander. With a dazzling score featuring well-known standards including Blue Skies, I Love A Piano, How Deep Is the Ocean and the perennial title song, White Christmas is an uplifting, wholesome musical that will delight audiences of all ages.”

In the past, the theater has presented Miracle on 34^th Street, It’s A Wonderful Life, and various versions of Scrooge. One year it offered Once Upon A Mattress.“That didn’t really fit very well into the holiday season,” Lathrop said of Mattress. “We try to stick with something that, one, has name recognition because 70% of our audience are tourists … we try to get something that is family-friendly and nostalgic and has a holiday theme. That’s kind of our criteria for the winter. We have families who come to Cannon Beach for the holidays, and part of their annual Christmas celebration is to go see a play at the Coaster Theatre.”

White Christmas will be performed Thursday Dec. 7; Thursday-Saturday, Dec. 12-14; and Thursday-Saturday, Dec. 20-22. All performances are at 7:30 p.m. and Dec. 7 is “pay what you will date.”

“You can pay anything above $5,” Lathrop said. “Whatever you can afford. We did that purposely for the local people.” For all other performances, tickets are $35 and $30, available online, at the theater box office, or by calling 503-436-1242.

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And in Newport, the Red Octopus Theatre Company presents for one weekend only The Christmas Show, a production that grew out of playwright Darcy Lawrence’s hopes of establishing here a beloved Christmas tradition from her childhood – but one that didn’t go quite as Lawrence had planned.

“When I was young, growing up in upstate New York, A Christmas Carol was presented annually at the local playhouse,” Lawrence wrote in a note to me after losing her voice while traveling. “It’s still staged there annually to this day! It’s a tradition for the region. Something the community looks forward to every Holiday season.” With The Christmas Show as conceived for Newport, Red Octopus decided that instead of presenting the same show every year, they’d mix things up – some years, a series of short plays; others, a full-length play, always Christmas-themed, of course.

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“The idea came from a good place, and many audience members expressed joy in knowing there would be something new to see each year,” Lawrence said. A Newport holiday tradition was born, but the company found that a portion of the audience thought they were going to see the same show as the previous year. “And no matter how good the new show might be, there was some level of disappointment for them.”

So, this year and in years to come, The Christmas Show will be a family-friendly, sketch-comedy style production with a cold open (the actors jump right in without explanation), “followed by an opening number, then a series of comedy sketches and special guests. The audience’s favorite sketches will return the following year, intermixed with fresh, new sketches.”

And some things will not change. Santa will still be around for photos, there’ll be snow inside! (yay), hot cocoa and Christmas cookies by the thousands – handmade and donated by local baker, writer and theater patron Kate Boyes. The cookies were so good, some members of the audience were, you might say, a little naughty.

“They were an instant hit and quickly became so popular that audience members were stealing full trays of them to take home to their families,” Lawrence said. The cookies are now distributed in individual baggies by hand ,with leftovers going to local charities. 

All tickets for The Christmas Show are $20 and available at the box office or online (a fee applies). Red Octopus offers a $5 discount on admission with the donation of two food items for Food Share of Lincoln County.