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The 1983 film "A Christmas Story" was a turning point in Peter Billingsley's life.
Not only did the classic holiday film make him a household name and familiar holiday fixture on cable, video and DVD, but it helped set him on a path to his current career as a successful Hollywood producer and director.
Having done commercials and films since the age of 3, the adolescent Billingsley was already an acting veteran when he played the part of Ralphie Parker, the all-American kid who dreams that the grown-ups in his life will stop telling him "You'll shoot your eye out, kid!" long enough to get him a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas.
Now, at age 40, Billingsley is one of the producers of "A Christmas Story: The Musical," which kicks off a five-city national tour Tuesday, Nov. 8, at Hershey Theatre.
In a phone interview from Los Angeles, where he's producing a TV pilot for TBS — the same network that runs a 24-hour "A Christmas Story" marathon every year over the holiday — Billingsley said the musical "follows the spine of the movie … with the same family and all the iconic scenes."
The musical, previously staged in Kansas City and Seattle, tells the familiar story of a 1940s Christmas in the Parker family, based on the childhood memories of the late radio humorist, raconteur and author Jean Shepherd.
Before he can hope for his gun under the tree, Ralphie must deal with a department-store Santa, a bully, his mother's defense of a Christmas turkey and a friend's encounter with a frozen flagpole.
"(The musical) takes all the good feelings of the movie" and accentuates them with singing and dancing, Billingsley said. "It will be familiar to the audience.
"Some films really lend themselves to the musical format and some don't," Billingsley said. "This one does. Ralphie was such a dreamer anyway, and was always having all these fantasies" that lend themselves well to musical-theater sequences.
The musical features such songs as "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out," "Up on Santa's Lap" and "Red Ryder." The Old Man (father) character sings with glee about his fish-netted lamp in "A Major Award," which is followed, Billingsley noted with a laugh, by a "whole leg-lamp kick line."
Emmy-nominated as a producer, Billingsley is a member of the Wild West Picture Show production company with his friend of 20 years, actor Vince Vaughn.
Billingsley directed the comedy "Couples Retreat" and has been executive producer of — and acted in — such films as "Iron Man" and "The Break-Up."
"I did a few movies that were big flops prior to ('A Christmas Story')," Billingsley recalled. While making those other films, "there was a lot of hype. 'Oh, kid, you're going to be a big star after this.'
"They had tried for 12 years to get ("A Christmas Story") made, and they were so devoted and dedicated to making the movie," Billingsley said. "It was probably a better situation because … we were focused on the kind of story we were telling.
"So, it was kind of a tight-knit family" on the set, he remembered. "I had a tremendous experience on that film.
"I really enjoyed Jean's company," Billingsley said of Shepherd, who narrated the movie as the voice of the adult Ralphie. Shepherd died in 1999.
The cast figured that once the movie had been released to modest fanfare, "that was it," Billingsley said. Cable and video were really just coming into their own in 1983, he said, so the cast couldn't foresee the vigorous second life the film would have as a holiday classic.
While shooting the film in Cleveland and Canada, Billingsley realized he eventually might want to move behind the camera. He found a mentor in director Bob Clark.
"Most kids finish a take and go back to the trailer," Billingsley said. "I hung around the set and asked a lot of questions."
Clark advised Billingsley to seek an apprenticeship in a studio editing room, "because that's where the basics of moviemaking happen." The young actor eventually followed his advice, later moving into post-production work and then into producing and directing.
Billingsley confessed to being "in awe" of young Clarke Hallum, who plays Ralphie on stage, and of the rest of the musical's cast.
"It's such an elevated skill level to be able to carry a show," Billingsley said, with singing, dancing, being in nearly every scene and performing several shows a week.
By contrast, in making the film, cast members would do a few takes and go back to their trailers. "It was a nice, lazy schedule," Billingsley said with a laugh.
Billingsley plans to come to Hershey to see the musical sometime during its run, and it won't be his first trip to Chocolatetown.
In the 1980s, Billingsley portrayed Messy Marvin in a series of commercials for Hershey's Syrup and came to town as a spokesman for the product.
Back then, Hershey gave him a tour of the chocolate factory and sent him a big box of Hershey chocolates.
"It was a dream come true for a kid," he said.
"One of my best memories about Hershey was that the town smelled like chocolate," he said. "I hope it still does."
"A Christmas Story: The Musical" runs Nov. 8-13 at Hershey Theatre, 15 E. Caracas Ave. For ticket information and a study guide for the musical, visit hersheytheatre.com.
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