The play Radium Girls, written by DW Gregory, is about an historical and very local event about female factory workers in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Illinois, trying to get compensation for the hazardous conditions they had to work in, ultimately leading to their death. The Student director of the show Giovanna Rapacioli, who expressed her love for theater and passion for the event, says that she had been working on the play since the musical last spring. She has done a lot of research on the event including having a speaker who gave more specifics about these dangerous chemicals. Including how they were made, and even emphasizing how little radium they should’ve been around, come in for cast and crew to learn even more about this very event.
When students were asked, most didn’t know what these girls and radium had to do with one another. The phrase Radium Girls was created around the 1920’s when women had worked extremely hard to paint watch dials for men in war to tell the time when it was dark outside. Not only did they paint these dials with radium but they also consumed an extreme amount of it when putting paint brushes with radium on them, in their mouths for a sharper point, leading them to glow. Giving them the name: Radium Girls. Giovanna Rapacioli explains,“And even years after their death, parts of these women still glow.”
The main characters of Radium Girls are Grace Fryer Played by Mailyn Santana, Arthur Roeder played by Harrison Gowell, Katherine Schaub played by Jimiayah Brunette, and Dr.Von-Sochocky played by Mark DeLorenzo. The lead actress of the Story, Grace Fryer portrayed by Mailyn Santana says,“This show has definitely been different from what I’m used to. It’s been a challenge,” however she really enjoys it. She also says that she can’t wait to see the final outcome. She describes herself similar to the character as she’s “so sassy,” sweet and caring. She shares that she is really happy with who Grace is as a person and how she portrays her as an actress. Mailyn continues to say what she likes about Grace Fryer. Mailyn sat with the question for a few seconds before saying,“She knows what she wants and she won’t compromise.” She believes that the first 2 shows will really get people excited to come see the next 2, with people from school and the community buzzing about it for days.
Co-Director, Molly Mohyde is doing the cosmetic side of the play, by doing hair, costumes, and special effects makeup. Giovanna Rapacioli designed the set, and with her family’s company they were able to bring it to life. She also works with stage managers: Christina Mattei, Gabrielle Esposito, and Sebastian Creter, on how she wants sets painted, props and set changes. Under the large umbrella of Stage Crew there is a sound group usually led by Gabrielle Esposito and Laysha Abikarram, who are in charge of lights, and sounds.
Giovanna Rapacioli shared that the whole reason she wanted to do this as the play for this year was because she saw the memorial in Waterbury, CT as she was driving on the highway. You may recognize it from where Highway 84 and Route 8 meet, and claimed it as “A topic she couldn’t get enough of.” She also says, “With our theater program I noticed, a lot of the plays we do are more on the silly tone, Disney side, which is all so fun and great, but I wanted to kind of transform our theater program to be taken a little bit more seriously.” She continues to say how relevant to our community this is. She says, “This topic specifically is so local, and not a lot of people know about it, so I wanted to bring more awareness not only to the girls but to like the entire school for them to realize that this actually happened and it’s ridiculous we haven’t learned about it.”
Giovanna says how she thinks people will react positively and dispute it being a more serious topic. “We got a lot of positive feedback from especially teachers who have heard about this. Initially when I presented the idea (to Director, Foster Reese,) we were a little bit worried that we weren’t going to get a lot of people to come see the show since it is not well known and not known as a kid story. In the end she said that all she cared about was the people who did come to see the show actually cared. Giovanna then goes on to state that quite a few people including cast, faculty, and herself, have connections to the storyline, whether they worked for the company, had to evaluate the company, or had a relation to the last living Radium Girl who passed in 2014.
Now with this information you can now watch Radium Girls like an expert and yet there is still so much more to this story. The WHS theater program would love it if the school, and community came to support their production. This play is such a serious topic and needs more light shed on it.
