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ATTLEBORO -- Some have never seen the movie, as amazing as that is. After all, it was released some 40 to 50 years before they were born.

They approach the complex, wide open story in the milieu of radio theater - old-fashioned entertainment that went the way of the dinosaur only a decade after the movie was released, some 50 years ago.

The St. Joe's Players - a group of teens and young adults from the greater Attleboro area - are rehearsing a radio play version of "It's a Wonderful Life" to be read live at 6:30 p.m. Saturday in the basement of St. Joseph's Church, South Main Street.

They will become a group of actors performing live on radio on Christmas Eve in the 1940s. There is no budget for the show, and no fee for the audience to watch. That's right, it's essentially free.

All that will be asked is a free will donation at the door to "maybe fix our stage a little," said Kathy Harum, a parishioner at St. Joseph's. But that's optional. Harum's neophyte company of performing neophytes has grown. It began this summer when seven teen actors shared various Shakesperian scenes in a 35-minute presentation on the stone steps of the church for a modest, but very enthusiastic, crowd.

I was there to savor it. I've seen adult amateur actors do Shakespeare and a few pros around these parts and, almost to a kid, these actors were simply better and more entertaining than most of those organized, dues-paying theater companies.

And all with limited rehearsals. Maybe the church had something to do with it. After all, acting companies spread and flourished 200 to 500 years ago through performances in the basements of hundreds of European churches. That's how regional theaters began and, occasionally, still begin.

From those seven would-be thespians, she has an even dozen now, ages 14-22, Harum added. Growth externally and from within.

Harum was an accomplished professional actress and singer herself in a previous life with her equally accomplished acting/singing husband David, before married life and parenthood made them leave the boards for the boardrooms of corporate America. She is, by all accounts, a dedicated, daring and superb teacher.

Adapted from the Capra movie

This radio play version of "It's A Wonderful Life" was adapted by Joe Landry from the Frank Capra film script. Landry has added a couple of send-ups of 1940s radio commercials, but, other than a few changes to adapt the script to the stage, has kept most of the original movie story.

"I had to make a few adaptations myself to facilitate a larger cast," said Harum. "Of course, part of the fun is the use of onstage sound effects. We may not be able to get them all, but we are trying to do most. One of our actors is primarily our sound effects person."

Without a budget, some anachronistic elements - like an electric keyboard and modern microphones - may be used, although the director is diligently searching for those wonderful, old-style radio mikes to use during the one performance, then swiftly return them.

Harum marvels that many of the teens in her cast have never seen the movie, but hastens to add that their mere fun might transport viewers back to the radio era of Jack Benny, the Shadow, Burns & Allen and Orson Welles Mystery Theater. "I'm hoping the message of this story will sink in: That every life, no matter how humble-seeming, can be beautiful in the truest sense," said Harum. "I want to educate to the beauty and importance of each life. I want to educate that there was a time that this country was not fearful or antagonistic toward a genuinely self-sacrificing, virtuous character who has the grace to call out to God for help in his most desperate hour and on whose behalf heaven actually intervenes. I want to educate that it is a life of service to others that makes a life most beautiful."

If art imitates life, she asks rhetorically, doesn't that make both of them "wonderful?"

JAMES A. MEROLLA can be reached at 508-236-0431 or at jmerolla@thesunchronicle.com.