When one thinks of a high school drama production, classic musicals and comedies are often the first genres to come to mind. Indeed, these are recurring themes throughout school theater. However, this season, Wootton and Seneca Valley high schools stood out around Montgomery County by presenting Radium Girls for their fall productions.
Radium Girls is a two-act play by D.W. Gregory, first published in 2000, dramatizing the true story of young female factory workers who became ill from radiation poisoning in the 1920s. The factories tasked the women with painting watch dials with radium-based paint amidst a national demand for the glow of radium products. The girls pointed their brushes with their lips to ensure they had a fine tip to color details and inadvertently ingested the radium. Despite knowing radium’s deadly effects, employers encouraged the girls to continue the practice.
When Grace Fryer, a factory worker and Radium Girls heroine, realized that the factory’s negligence caused her health ailments, including jaw decay, she and four other workers sued and won a settlement from the U.S. Radium Corporation. Her case made a lasting mark on the workers’ rights movement.
Radium Girls’s plot begins during the late stages of World War I, when the young women first began to paint the dials, and concludes in 1928, after their victory. In between, the play covers the story of the hopeful young workers’ gradual disillusionment as they realize their seemingly ideal job is slowly killing them and former factory manager Arthur Roeder’s shift from blind ambition to shattering guilt as he learns of the consequences of his careless greed.
Seneca Valley’s play, directed by Joanna Fellows, ran during November 3rd, 4th, 10th and 11th. Wootton’s performances, directed by Julian Lazarus, were on November 9th–12th. Both schools chose the play for different reasons. “Every four years, Seneca Valley Birds of Play chooses a historical drama,” Fellows said. “[This year I] selected Radium Girls because the story was so compelling and I liked the ensemble nature of the piece.” For Wootton, the show’s timing is a symbolic turning point from the coronavirus pandemic. “If I have a student for four years, I want them to have opportunities to do a range of kinds of shows,” Lazarus said. “After Covid, we were working hard to reconnect with the community and get them back into the theater and join us. After a couple of shows I feel like we’ve done that. And now it’s also time to expand our horizons and look at different genres.”
However, similar dramatic works were not as well represented across MCPS. “If you look at the list of shows that were put on this fall across MCPS, the majority of them are more lighthearted and comedic,” Lazarus explained. “There are only a handful of shows, including the two performances of Radium Girls, that address more serious subject matter.”
Schools may choose such lighthearted works to cater to both the comforts of the cast and the interests of their young audiences. Fellows noted, “There is a tendency to choose comedy and family-friendly productions in high school theatre, although there is an awesome diversity of work represented across the MCPS stages.”
Due to the unique nature of the show, Radium Girls posed many challenges to its cast and crew, especially when it came to authentically depicting the story. Wootton senior and student director Margo Brown said, “We made sure to give brief lessons about the history early on into the production process and place an emphasis on respect of the characters and accuracy to the time.”
The Wootton Patriot Players then met with playwright D.W. Gregory on Zoom, where students had the opportunity to ask questions about the play and her writing process. Seneca Valley spoke with several guest speakers to learn about the context and legacy of the Radium Girls case.
Behind the scenes, crew members worked hard to make the play realistic. Wooton junior and costume department head Evelyn Wan said, “We tried to make sure everything was as accurate as possible, and had several rehearsals where we just sat and researched what people wore at the time.” Additionally, the Wootton hair and makeup department studied how to age many of the cast to depict the passing of time in the play.
The show’s actors faced the demanding task of honoring their characters while delivering a moving, nuanced performance to the audience. “I had to reread and really break down her scenes to know what were her ambitions, what she really wanted, what type of person she was,” Wootton senior Nwamaka Aniagboso, who played Grace Fryer, explained. “I really wanted to show off how tired she was of everyone telling her what to do… instead of putting her foot down and taking a stand against what she thinks is wrong.” Lazarus affirmed, “We tried to keep things honest as well as understand there is a dramatic arc to the story and [the importance of] keeping the artistic side to things.”
“With the set design, the set pieces, the way that the characters acted, and the costumes, I think it was all spot on,” Wootton junior Kian Hamidzadeh, who watched the play, said. “It did remind me of the early twentieth century.”
The production moved many audience members, who grew interested in learning more about the history of the Radium Girls. “It was very nice and I enjoyed it. The story was compelling, of course… I would like to see a lot more deeper, especially historical, plays and musicals [being produced] out there.” Hamidzadeh said. “[However,] the microphones and the pacing of the speech could have been performed a little bit better to [better] understand [the play].”
Even though the real-life basis for Radium Girls occurred nearly a hundred years ago, and the play itself was published twenty years ago, the story stood out as highly relevant for contemporary society. Its depictions of corporate greed, health, safety and women’s fights for equality bear many parallels to the present. “Performing in the show [gave] students perspective on history and modern day issues they may not have been aware of before,” Brown said.
“In a period when misinformation is coming from all sides of the political and ideological spectrum, you really need more critical thinking and a better understanding of history to better navigate this dark social culture war,” Hamidzadeh added.
However, despite the tragic storyline, the Radium Girls’ ultimate victory left its production teams and audiences optimistic. “Radium Girls specifically is a show where it is [a] serious and sad subject matter, but it’s also a story of perseverance and standing up for what you believe in and taking responsibility for your choices and your actions,” Lazarus explained.
“It’s about the little guy getting a voice. It’s about being heard. And at the end of the day, we all just want to be heard,” Fellows said.
Written by Daniela Naaman of Thomas S. Wootton High School
Photo by Jax Kobey of Wootton High School of Radium Girls’s final scene
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