Exclusive Q&A by Brad Balfour, Arts Editor
Play: “It’s a Wonderful Life – A Live Radio Play”
Director: Charlotte Moore.
Cast: Rufus Collins, Ali Ewoldt, Reed Lancaster, Leenya Rideout, and Ashley Robinson
When: December 3 – December 31, 2025
Running Time: 1 hour and 10 minutes (no intermission)
Where: The Irish Repertory Theatre
Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage
132 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011
As actor Ashley Robinson says in his bio, “Proud to be back at the Irish Rep! Boundless thanks to Charlotte and Ciarán” which is a notable comment given that they really gave him his start when he was cast as Lon in The Irish Repertory Theatre production of “Meet Me in St. Louis,” a few years back. He had just come to New York as a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Robinson also was in Irish Rep’s “Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory” where he got a 2015 Outer Critics Award nom. Now, he is one of the five ensemble members of the Irish Rep’s latest show, “It’s a Wonderful Life – A Live Radio Play,” directed by Charlotte Moore. Rufus Collins, Ali Ewoldt, Reed Lancaster and Leenya Rideout round out the cast.
Based on the classic 1946 American Christmas fantasy drama “It’s a Wonderful Life” directed and produced by Frank Capra, the film is additionally based on the short story and booklet of “The Greatest Gift” — self-published by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1943. And that was loosely based on the 1843 Charles Dickens novella “A Christmas Carol.”
As noted in Wikipedia, “The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his personal dreams to help others in his community and whose thoughts of suicide on Christmas Eve bring about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody. Clarence shows George all the lives he touched and what the world would be like if he had not existed.”
When the copyright of “It’s a Wonderful Life” in the U.S. expired in 1974 following a lack of renewal, it entered the public domain, allowing it to be broadcast without licensing or royalty fees, at which point it became a Christmas classic — or an adapted one — as it has been done here.
In this stage production, Robinson plays Bailey’s guardian angel Clarence, and makes the character his own. The show incorporates the movie’s premise as if it were part of a 1946 radio play so the stage production also includes the experience of that as well.
Besides his acting, Robinson has developed his own play adaptation of “Brokeback Mountain” which received its world premiere on London’s West End last year and is currently being translated and produced in various countries worldwide. His musical “5&Dime” will receive its World Premiere at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley next year. His musical “Fall Of ’94” is in development.
The following exclusive Q&A was conducted by phone with Robinson in order for people to go and see this show which was a lot of fun and engaging.
Q: Don’t you think these are pretty big shoes to step into with this show at The Irish Rep?
Ashley Robinson: I know. They are really big shoes, but I’m having the best time with this group of people — I’m just having a great time with them.
Q: When you saw the movie, which I gather you did…
Ashley Robinson: I saw the movie about 10 years ago on the big screen. My friend couldn’t believe that I’d never seen it [before that]. And I cried like a baby. I haven’t seen it since, on purpose. Because I knew Clarence was quite a bit older than me, I was like, “I’m just going to do my own take on this.” I purposefully didn’t watch the movie. I know some cast members didn’t [as well]. I know Rufus and I both didn’t watch the film. I think we’re just doing our own take on the roles, which is a lot of fun. And Charlotte seemed to like it, so here we are.
Q: Did you ever expect it to be like a musical? Even though it’s also a radio play, it’s kind of a musical as well.
Ashley Robinson: It is. I find it refreshing that the music is all rooted in a very specific time and place. they’re all sort of World War II era songs, which is really refreshing, because you’re not coming into a Christmas show hearing songs of the era. It’s refreshing for a Christmas show because you get more than just Christmas songs, which are lovely, but they’re few and far between here. You get three or four of them, but then you also get a real taste of the era. David does a fantastic job of composing original music for it — like the radio jingle. And, David Hancock Turner is, I just think, a genius.
Q: In a way, you’re glad you’re not doing just Christmas songs because you don’t have to have that comparison.
Ashley Robinson: It’s really a New Year’s story. It’s more than a Christmas story, it’s about rebirth and is very life affirming.
Q: When you were given this character to play, what did you think about it in terms of playing him to make it different or the same as the movie?
Ashley Robinson: I didn’t think about the movie at all because it’s been 10 years since I’ve seen it. I remember him being an older character. Me, being a lot younger and floppy-haired and a little scrappy so Rufus [Collins, who plays George] and I have a really fun dynamic in it.
The text told me that Clarence’s an angel second class. He really wants to earn his wings. He’s punching above his weight a little bit. Let’s just say that. I feel like he’s being given a chance by the superintendent that he’s been waiting on. I feel like he’s got a heart of gold and bless him. He’s a little slow on the uptake, and a little impatient the whole way through, which is really fun to play. Rufus and I are just having the best time sort of being a little duo.
Q: Had you known any of the cast before this?
Ashley Robinson: I knew Ali, Reed, and of course I knew Charlotte. Everyone else is new to me. And I knew David [Hancock Turner] who scored the thing and arranged it beautifully.
Q: Now, do you think of yourself as more of a musical theater actor or more of an actor who does musical theater?
Ashley Robinson: Definitely an actor who does musical theater. I don’t particularly agree with how musical theater is done. I normally get bored by singers who are acting as opposed to actors who are singing. I like actors who sing as opposed to musicians playing the idea of something, which I think is more prevalent in musical theater, unfortunately.
Q: To get on stage and act is one thing. To get on stage and act and sing is another. And to get on stage and act and dance, that’s the trifecta. I don’t know how it’s done. At least you don’t have that problem here. You don’t have to worry about dancing.
Ashley Robinson: No, I don’t have to worry about dancing. I am not a dancer at all.
Q: Is it an advantage for this show to have “It’s a Wonderful Life” in the background, in the back of their head, as opposed to doing something purely new? Do you think that the people seeing this come in with expectations, comparing it in one way or another to the film?
Ashley Robinson: I think both. If they’re fans of the movie, it certainly echoes the movie but it’s also, clearly, an adaptation of the movie. Charlotte directed it very clearly and sharply. She has such an eye and is such a mentor. That woman’s taught me about everything I know through the years. It’s always a joy [to work with her]. It’s an automatic yes, when she calls.
Q: An interesting aspect of this to be a radio play as opposed to being a more traditional stage production.
Ashley Robinson: It just adds another layer of fun. It suspends the audience’s disbelief of the whole piece and it makes it really theatrical. It makes it really immediate to an audience in a way a play wouldn’t necessarily do.
Q: Do you feel that when you’re doing it, what’s easier for you — to do your own work or to do other people’s work? You have productions of your own in mind. Some actors want to produce and direct shows, they want to write shows. Sometimes it’s a relief if you don’t have to think about anything other than what the director and producer have told you to do. You just go and do it. What’s easier? What are the challenges of both?
Ashley Robinson: The challenges… It’s a miracle anything gets on [stage]. As an actor, I don’t have to worry about all that shit. But these pieces that I’ve written, I am there for rehearsals, for the first outing until it goes to New York and then it’ll be licensed. For five a dime and for a pack. But I’m not acting in them. It might be fun to do, but I have a friend who just wrote and directed his own movie. The actor dropped out at the last minute so he had to play the lead, while directing his first feature. I feel like one should stay on one side of the table. or at least that’s what I feel I should be doing right now.
Q: Obviously in a show like this, since it has only five cast members, you have a lot more roles to play as a member of the ensemble than necessarily playing only the one character. What are the challenges that are different from when you’re the main character and are focused on just the one character?
Ashley Robinson: I find it kind of freeing. As you saw, we literally put on different hats and it’s just fun to go outside in, which, if I was playing one character, I would approach it inside out. With this, you have to paint [the characters] in very broad strokes and then find the truth to play them. You find clearance. I went inside out, but the rest of them were definitely outside in — that’s really freeing in a way. I don’t often approach roles like that.
Q: Did you like to think about having your own guardian angel?
Ashley Robinson: Today has been a blessed day, my friend. I tell you that. Somebody’s looking after me.
Q: Why? What happened?
Ashley Robinson: I can’t really say. Oh, a major thing came through today that I was worried would not come through and it came through in a much bigger way than I anticipated. And then another project came through all in the same day, all in the, I did a little dance at Clancy Street on the platform when I got an email. Then I went straight to a meeting and realized that I’ll be further developing a project at my alma mater, UNCSA [the North Carolina School of the Arts], down in Winston-Salem. It’s a piece that my dean and mentor, Gerald Friedman, developed with Alfred Urie. Alfred and I are working together on a re-mount and sort of re-dance version, a pared-down version of the musical “Rob of Bridegroom.” It’s sort of making a problematic show nowadays, unproblematic. So we’re further developing that, which is great. I can’t really say anything about the other thing because it’s not really been announced yet.
Q: Out of curiosity, what about your Irish roots?
Ashley Robinson: I just found out that my mother’s side is Kirby, so very much so.
Q: Kirby, yes, for sure.
Ashley Robinson: Yes, and I just found out [about the Irish roots] on the Robinson side — my dad’s side — I just went to a reunion. My cousin came to the show with her daughter. She did the 23andMe on a great aunt of mine before she died, which was the Robinson Clan. It was huge. We found out that we’re not Robinsons, that we are actually Caudillys from Ireland. A traveling salesman named Caudilly impregnated my great-great, maybe a third great-grandmother. She was a bit of a… She got around, we say, in old Union, South Carolina. Her second child from another man was Robinson, and she just named this Robinson to save face. She didn’t want people in the town to know that she was having a child by this traveling salesman, who was a Caudilly from Ireland. So I’m actually 50% more Irish than I thought. I’m 100% Irish.
Q: Now you have a new play to tell about that story.
Ashley Robinson: I know. I need to talk to Ciarán and figure out with the Irish government how to, somehow, you know, he’ll know how to get in there and find my cousins.
Q: And to find your financing, too. They love giving money to art productions — theater and film. The Irish government. They have the board. You might have an opportunity there.
Ashley Robinson: Yeah. Interesting.
Q: Let’s talk a little bit about the evolution of this. How did you get the call, how did you and Charlotte and Ciarán know each other initially, and then ultimately what you and the ensemble, the rest of the ensemble, did to build up the play and figure out how each role would define itself?
Ashley Robinson: Well, she cast me in “Meet Me in St. Louis” when I was fresh out of school, and it was one of the great experiences of my professional career. I met so many wonderful friends that I’m still in touch with. We were kids. We were out every night until like 2 or 4 in the morning, and had the best time. It’s the closest cast I think I’ve ever been a part of.
then I fell into doing their holiday show every year, and I’ve done a couple of other things that weren’t holiday shows there. And they’re just so, with me developing my own. The first reading ever of “Brokeback Mountain” was in their studio. The first reading and several readings of my musical “Five and Dime” were done at the Irish Rep.
Q: That’s not like the Five and Dime, what was it?
Ashley Robinson: “Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.” It’s a musical version of that.
Q: Oh, it is… I’ve seen that movie.
Ashley Robinson: And yeah, [they] generously have given me space over the years to develop things. I feel like a real company member, and it feels like coming home every time. And when I’m doing the show with Char, I’d always go to Thanksgiving when Jack was alive, John McMartin, and we’d go out with his family, and I’ve become, over the years, close with his daughter, her partner and their daughter.
Charlotte’s family to me, from so many years of being at that theater. And I love her very, very much. So, in terms of this process, Charlotte’s is a link to Hal Prince’s way of doing things. and she’s a link to Sondheim. I’ve got a picture of her with Tennessee Williams, clearly from the late ’70s, early ’80s. She’s a link to a golden age, and that’s very, very important. The way she does things is she just hires actors who really come in with a point of view, who come in with ideas. When I direct things, everything I know I learned from Charlotte. They’re true. She gets things on their feet, and hires actors with really good instincts who come into the room and have something to bring to the table.
A lot of musical theater actors, at first, don’t know what to do because they want to be told exactly what to do. I hate that. But Charlotte just gives so much space, and then she has such an eye. When she does give a note, it just ripples through the entire thing. She shapes it, and we run the show. She has it on its feet by the end of the first week, usually, and we have time to really feel the arc and the journey. By the time we’re in the theater, it feels lifted. She’s brilliant in a way that most directors don’t do that anymore. It’s certainly a wonderful way to rehearse, and I’m so glad that she does it that way.
Q: Was there any kind of conversation that the rest of the crew, the rest of the ensemble, had about, let’s try to do that or let’s do that? I think we can make this work that way?
Ashley Robinson: The thing with Charlotte and the thing with really good directors is, which she is definitely one of, you know, casting is 90%. So you cast actors you know you trust. And then for us as actors, we just show her. We just, you know, people, you don’t ask permission. You just do it. And then she loves it or she hates it. So, we pop things off each other. But me, I don’t really ask permission. I just do the thing and the actor reacts or, if the actor really hates it, then I try not to do it again. Charlotte just sees it and then you can tell if she likes it or not. Or if she doesn’t like it, she’ll give a note and you don’t do it again.
Q: Since this is a seasonal show and only has that limited run, is that a good thing or do you get into it and then “Go, oh, no, it’s going to end?”
Ashley Robinson: This, I think, is the best dressing room dynamic I’ve ever been in. We have the best time. The poor girls, they just go. “We just hear you all laughing and laughing and cutting up. We only hear the laughter. We don’t hear the jokes.” It is the most loving, irreverent and just so refreshing to be in this dressing room. I love coming to work every day. I cherish every single moment because I know it’s going away so quickly. And in an odd way, I don’t think I’ve had a better time at the Rep since maybe “St. Louis.” I don’t think there’s been a better chemistry among the cast since that time.
Q: Is there anything you can recall from when you meet people after the show?
Ashley Robinson: My friend who came to see it, and said the best thing. He goes, “This thing just works. It’s just got really strong bones and a really huge heart. People are crying and it just means so much to people. It’s so universal, this story.” People’s reactions… They come out with joy in their hearts and tears in their eyes. It’s lovely.
Q: Do you find it refreshing to not have an intermission?
Ashley Robinson: Absolutely. every show I write thus far has been like 90 minutes, no intermission, done. It’s what people, I think, people’s attention span [can handle] nowadays. They either want to see something that’s like one act and done or they want to see a two-part, really long like “Nicholas Nickleby” style or an “Angels in America” style thing. It’s either one or the other, I feel like, that tends to work.