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Creek’s theater program, Troupe 1730, hosted their first show of the year last weekend. “Radium Girls” tells the story of Grace Fryer, played by senior Molly Grantz and junior Sidney Allen, and the mysterious illness that began to infect employees of watch-making factories in the 1920s after the use of radium in paint. While Fryer fights for her complaints to be heard by the company’s president, she struggles with the loss of her friends, her declining health, and crumbling relationships.
“This show was able to demonstrate [complicated] issues through Grace’s relentless battle towards justice and her [constant] need for change due to the circumstances with her fellow coworkers and herself,” Grantz said.
In 1926, the use of radium, an element which is now understood to be extremely harmful and radioactive, had become rapidly popular for painting glow-in-the dark watch faces, as well as being a supposed cure for tumors and joint pain. Girls like Fryer, who painted the watch faces with radium paints, would lick brushes to sharpen lines — and over time, their jaws began to rot.
Before the show, tech crews spent months constructing, lighting, and collecting props for the production. With work from a near 30 person crew and 19 student leaders, the stage was built to look like a factory, with a giant clock painted in glowing letters above it, and large props to be wheeled on at any point during the show to create a variety of different environments.
“The entire process started back in May when [senior set designer and associate tech director Oliver Burkholder] started making rough drafts of how they wanted it to look,” junior construction head Evan Roosa said.
Every aspect of the show was picked over and made to look exactly like the 1920s: layered cloth dresses, aprons, pinstripe suits, vintage brown glass bottles and green bottomed margarita glasses.
“From a props perspective, the main challenge of this show was achieving the glow look,” junior props and set dressing head Rachel Wheatley said. “It was a key part of what made these props unique and was an important image in the show.”
To depict the imminent death that the radium poisoning was causing for the employees, each character that had been exposed to radium had a skull painted on their lower jaws — and it was only visible when the lights were off.
Director Alex Burkart, with help of senior stage manager Nat Wilkes and assistant stage managers senior Sophia Chuckalas and juniors Cedar Lascor and Norah Armstrong, designed a show with multiple moving parts, complicated choreography, and time-accurate dialogue.
“I would come up with ideas on how to make it functional based on my knowledge of the script,” Wheatley said. “[There would be] a lot of talking with stage management to understand the blocking that the item would need to work with.”
From a tech perspective, crews were in close contact with Burkhart as well. After the set was designed the first time, the crews relied on direction and edits from Burkart to make changes to support blocking for the actors.
“After [Burkholder was] given some changes by [Burkhart,] we met up and started drafting out the show and getting a better idea of how the show was actually going to look,” Roosa said. “After the show was drafted we started [our crews] and were actually able to start building and painting the set.”
Creative production didn’t just rely on tech. Actors and Burkart spent three months practicing dialogue for a play that would teach people about the history of radium poisoning.
“I did not know of this story before participating in the production, unfortunately. I do not think enough people are aware of this story,” Grantz said. “Without [the radium girls], many of the [safety] processes in the workplace and employment rights would not exist.”
Both the cast and crew wanted the show to have a lasting impact on everyone who watched it, as well as teach them about the history of workplace equality and women’s rights.
“This show tells a lot about standing up for yourself and advocating for causes you really care about, even when it seems a little hopeless,” Wheatley said. “For high schoolers, I think it often seems like we don’t have much of a voice, but I think this show demonstrates the need to speak out and fight, even if you think no one is listening.”
“Radium Girls” relied on pinpoint accuracy and time-period relevant details to tell a story, and the cast believes it will make a real impact on the Creek community.
“By the end of this show, many people have become touched by Grace’s story and I believe many people have a new perspective regarding the workplace environment and the importance of fighting for your rights as a human,” Grantz said. “I hope everyone can walk away from this show with a new found respect for employment struggles and the significance of activism and solidarity.”
See moments from the play below:
Junior Kate Dann (left,) who plays Katheryn Schaub, an employee in the watch factory, scribbles lines of radium paint on the face of senior Molly Grantz, who plays Grace Fryer, the lead of the show. The paint, which is later discovered to be toxic, causes the employees of the factory to fall ill with radium poisoning.
Senior Ella Basham, who plays the ‘Sob Sister’ reporter, reads an article about the imminent arrival of scientist Marie Curie, played by senior Kira Frey, to the factory aloud. During her visit, Dr. Curie explains the possible cures to disease that radium could provide – furthering the general population’s desire to drink it.
Junior Kate Dann (left) as Katheryn Schaub, senior Molly Grantz (center) as Grace Fryer, and junior Simone Thursby (right) as Irene Rudolph line up to listen to a speech from the company president, Arthur Roeder, played by senior Theo Odendahl. Throughout the play, Roeder remains a stagnant denier of the negative effects of radium, and refuses to believe that his employees are sick because of it.
Senior Alden Mendrey, who plays Freyer’s fiancee, Tom Kreider, embraces Grantz. Before Freyer was exposed to radium poisoning, the couple were prepared to get married and begin a family, but their plans were dismantled as Freyer’s health deteriorated.
Junior Brooke Sax, who plays Roeder’s wife, Diane, calls to her young daughter before her husband returns home from work. As the radium scandal begins to pick up more attention, Diane Roeder begins to realize that her husband might not be being completely honest about the severity of what’s going on with the company.
Arthur Roeder, played by senior Theo Odendahl, pours his wife Diane, played by junior Brooke Sax, a drink of radium water. After Dr. Curie’s speech, where she encouraged the use of drinking radium water to cure tumors, people across the community began to drink the water, exposing them to radium poisoning as well.
Junior River Sailers, who plays Dr. Joseph Knef, a dentist, explains the result of his examination into Freyer’s jaw to her. One of the effects of radium poisoning is disintegration of the jaw, something the watch-making company did not want to be publicized.
Senior Ella Basham, who played the reporter, and sophomore Dakota Kennedy, who played the photographer, offer Freyer, Kreider, and Schaub a payout in return for their agreement that they would only be interviewed by the ‘Sob Sister’s’ paper. Freyer denies the offer despite her rising medical debt.
As she becomes sicker, Freyer decides she cannot go through with her marriage, feeling too guilty about her lack of time left to live and rapidly rising amounts of debt that she’s unable to pay off. Eventually, Kreider and Freyer part ways, and he finds someone new to start a relationship with.
Grace Freyer, played by senior Molly Graztz, sleeps on a couch near the end of the play. She dreams of Schaub’s death, and awakes to the news that she has been hospitalized and might not make the court date set for their trial against the watch-making company. Throughout the play, the company found countless ways to continually push back the date of the trial, making it so that the employees would not be able to testify.
Dr. Von Sochocky, played by senior Jude Benton (left) talks to Arthur Roeder, played by senior Theo Odendahl in the final stages of the play. When Roeder meets with Dr. Von Sochocky, he is told that the company did, in fact, know about the dangerous effects of radium – Roeder had just not read the company’s policy statement.
Freyer places flowers at Schaub’s grave, after she died before the trial was held. Following the trial, C.B Lee, played by junior Mackenzie Norcutt, replaced Roeder as the company head and announced that the company will make large restitution payments to each of the ill employees.
