If you’re not yet in the holiday spirit, Cascades Theatrical Company is here to kick-start the season with a special blend of “Miracle on 34th Street,” opening Friday at Cascades Theatre in Bend.

You may recall the whimsy and warmheartedness of the 1947 movie, and this “Miracle on 34th Street,” presented as a radio play, is in much the same vein. The elves at CTC — that is, Rick Jenkins and Mike Ficher — cobbled together a fresh adaptation of the beloved story, according to Juliah Rae, who co-directed the show with Marla Manning.

Like other holiday films, “Miracle on 34th Street” is synonymous with the Christmas season, but it was originally released in the summer, Rae noted.

“The movie was released in June of 1947 because (studio head) Darryl Zanuck thought that more people came to movies in warmer weather,” she said. “But it was enough of a hit that Lux Radio Theater — they did an hourlong version of a lot of movies — chose this one.”

Lux even got Maureen O’Hara, Edmund Gwenn and John Payne to star in the radio reboot on Dec. 22, 1947. As it turns out, the closing performance on Dec. 22 is also the 71st anniversary of the airing of the radio show.

“That’s just a happy happenstance,” said Rae, involved in her third consecutive CTC holiday show. Three years ago she directed “It’s a Wonderful Life” as a radio play and then served as a mentor on “A Christmas Carol.”

This year’s production came to be because “We were looking for a Christmas play, and we couldn’t find one we liked,” she said, referring to the Play Selection Committee.

They looked at Lux Radio Theater’s “Miracle on 34th Street,” which is in the public domain, “but it’s an hourlong play, and they had their own ads in there,” she said. “We knew we had to put more back in.”

Enter Jenkins and Ficher, who cobbled together this version using the original radio script and other sources.

“I watched the film, it seems like a million times, but it couldn’t have been that many,” Jenkins said. Along with the repeat viewings, he made use of the novella by Valentine Davies, who also wrote the story that became the film (though the screenplay was written by George Seaton).

“There’s some original material in here,” Jenkins said, referring to CTC’s adaptation. “We didn’t add any scenes from scratch, but there are a few scenes that are very substantially rewritten, or modified anyway. You know, we rearranged the dialogue and added words and sentences, and cut words and sentences to — we hope, we think — make the story flow better, and tell better.”

Jenkins and Ficher are also in the cast. Since it’s a play within a play, each actor plays at least one character. Jenkins is Robert Ashworth, the radio actor who plays Kris Kringle. Ficher plays sound effects man Neal Stewart, creating cloppity footsteps and more realism at his stage-right Foley table.

Don’t let the meta nature of the production confuse you: Imagine you’re in the studio audience of a live radio broadcast, way back when radio could be counted on to present such good stuff. The radio actors are introduced by announcer Sanford Cole, played by Craig Brauner, who looks almost eerily like someone beamed in from the past, although that could just be the tux he wears. (For the final weekend performances, Dec. 20 through 22, Richard Choate will step into the role.)

And then it’s off to the races, or at least Macy’s, where Doris Walker (Catherine Christie as radio actress Colleen Kennedy) has responsibilities galore. Along with being a single mother to Susan Walker (Mary Hildebrandt as Willow Nathanson, doing an amazing job at not just Susan, but also other kid voices), her responsibilities as a Macy’s employee include giving the boot to a drunken Santa (veteran Bend actor and improv man Brad Knowles, playing many a role) who is soon replaced when Kris Kringle swoops in to save the day.

Kris Kringle does an impressive job impersonating jolly St. Nick because he firmly believes he is Santa Claus. Doris soon catches the eye of Fred Gailey, a single lawyer who lives in her building (Thomas Avery as Reece Davis). Fred is chagrined to learn that young Susan — raised by Doris to avoid such nonsense — does not believe in Santa Claus. Shudder!

In a Christmas play with a jovial Kris Kringle in it, you can bet that everyone is going to love him to pieces — except the requisite bad guy (every story needs one), embodied by Macy’s in-house psychologist (Knowles) who thinks Kringle is crazy and seeks to have him sent to Bellevue Hospital, the first name in scary psych wards.

To flesh out the performance, the cast — which also includes strong ensemble players Amy Anderton and John Giambalvo — also acts out live Lux soap commercials heard in the show’s day and age.

Though the cast had been dealing with rewrites and an evolving script during the rehearsal process, this reporter could scarcely tell that from a pre-Thanksgiving rehearsal. In fact, only once or twice did an actor call for a line, meaning that the show should be even more polished by the time it opens Friday.

If you can’t wait for Friday’s opening, there’s always the preview night performance at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday. Tickets are available at the door for a suggested donation of $10.

However, if you wait one more night for the official opening there will be complimentary cupcakes and champagne — which sound kind of miraculous.