D.W. Gregory’s “Radium Girls” follows three women who work at the U.S. Radium Plant in Orange, New Jersey, in the 1920s. They’re painting watch dials with radium-based paint so they’ll glow in the dark at night. As if that’s not bad enough, they moisten the tips of their paint brushes with their saliva.
“They were instructed to tip the paint brushes by using their lips, so they would ingest the paint and they became really sick, experienced really terrible disfigurement and eventually died,” Director Brittney Brady explained.
Informed by the work of Marie Curie, the factory owner saw limitless potential in radium. So he brushed aside his workers’ concerns that the paint was making them sick, blaming their illnesses on poor dental hygiene.
What follows is Grace Fryer’s fight for her day in court. It’s a battle reminiscent of the 2000 legal drama starring Julia Roberts, in which her character, Erin Brockovich, investigates Pacific Gas and Electric Company for contaminating groundwater in Hinkley, California.
“The play has like 40 characters in it and we have 12 actors in the cast so they’re playing multiple roles,” Brady said. “It’s a complicated story to tell because there’s so much litigation and talk about contracts and settlements and reports and new evidence…. But they have done a really good job.”
There are myriad modern-day parallels to the play's disquieting central theme: the imbalance of power between large, profitable companies and the young and marginalized people who work for them.
“It’s absolutely a timeless story, and we’re not only trying to tell the story of these women, who actually existed, but also tie it to broader movements of standing up for what’s right and fighting against injustice,” Brady added.
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Playwright D.W. Gregory based “Radium Girls” on fact. Though the actual story ranged from 1918 through the 1940s, the bulk of the narrative in the drama is centered on events that took place in New Jersey in the mid 1920s.
“’Radium Girls’ tells the story of young women in Orange, New Jersey, who painted luminous watch dials, unknowingly poisoning themselves with each stroke of radium-based paint,” said Brittney Brady in her director’s note for the play. “Grace, Kathryn and Irene fight to hold the U.S. Radium Corporation accountable. Their struggle became one of the first major workers’ rights cases to capture national attention, exposing the devastating cost of unchecked industrial power. Though the women won their lawsuits, justice came too late. Many had already died, and those who lived did not survive long enough to see the full impact of their fight.”
“Radium Girls” is a fierce examination of the commercialization of science, corporate greed and exploitation, the power of the underdog, and the fierce injustice laborers in America have and continue to face.
“As a theater artist,” Brady wrote in her director’s note, “I am drawn to work that bears witness to human suffering and is fueled by the revolutionary potential of collective acts of imagination. Inspired by author Barry Lopez’s poignant query, we confront the pressing question – “What will we do as the wisdom of our past bears down on our future?” This play restores a story that corporate and legal systems tried to silence, compelling us to reckon with the true cost of progress and the power of collective action. Then, as now, our world is fractured by greed yet bound by our collective awakening, driven by an unrelenting desire to see the world repaired.”
Tatum Bates plays the part of Grace. Tatum’s stage credits include “No Single Body for Me to Follow” for Ghostbird Theatre Company, Thorton Wilder’s “Our Town” for the Centers for the Performing Arts Bonita Springs, Hamlet in FGCU TheatreLab’s “Hamlet,” Katherine Stockmann in FGCU TheatreLab’s “Enemy of the People,” Livvy in “Mountain Mamas” in Florida Repertory Theatre’s Play Lab, Player No. 7 in “The Wolves” and Linda in “Evil Dead: The Musical” in Lab Theater Education’s summer intensive camp and Dr. Knef in “Radium Girls.”
Bates’ film credits include Kaylee in DBS Films’ “A Cold Grave” as well as “Horror in the Forest,” the mystery thriller “Todd” and Puss in Ghostbird Theatre Company’s filmplay “Too Many Words” by Barry Cavin. Tatum is a graduate of Cypress Lake High School and past participant in the Junior Theater Festival in Atlanta.
Alana Agresspahl pays the parts of Kathryn Schaub and Shop Girl.
Line Frambes plays Irene Rudolph and Katherine Wiley.
The rest of the cast consists of Kennedy Zumwalt, Addyson McGowan, Kaylee Anastasi, Nadya Smirnova, Lucian Bathgate, Ryder Bees, Giovanni Contreras, Cody Klimek and Stephan Tatum. Each plays multiple roles except Tatum, who plays factory owner Arther Roeder.
“The play begins and ends with light,” Brady further observed in her director’s note. “Grace recalls how brightly the factory glowed, yet she spends the entire story struggling to be seen by those who harmed her. ‘Radium Girls’ urges us to remember what happens when profits are placed above people and when women are silenced. More importantly, it reminds us of the unyielding perseverance that can bring about change when individuals refuse to accept injustice.”
Remaining performances are Friday, Feb. 21 at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Feb. 22 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; and Sunday, Feb. 23’s closing 2 p.m. matinee.
Tickets are $15 for the general public and $7 for students.
For tickets, visit visit https://secure.touchnet.com/C20748_ustores/web/store_main.jsp?STOREID=12&SINGLESTORE=true.
“Radium Girls” has been produced more than 1,800 times in the United States and abroad.
D.W. Gregory is an award-winning writer whose plays frequently explore political issues through a personal lens and with a comedic twist.
Gregory’s other plays include “Memoirs of a Forgotten Man” (Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Shadowland Stages, New Jersey Rep), “Molumby’s Million” (nominated for a Barrymore Award for Outstanding New Play by Philadelphia Theatre Alliance), “A Thing of Beauty” (winner of the Southeastern Theatre Conference’s 2023 Charles Getchell New Play Award), “The Good Daughter," "October," and a new musical, “The Yellow Stocking Play” (with composer Steven M. Alper and lyricist Sarah Knapp, which won awards for Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical in CreateTheater’s 2023 New Works Festival).