The Theatre Group of Santa Ynez High School will be mounting D.W. Gregory’s popular historical docudrama Radium Girls as their fall production. Directed by Jeff McKinnon with a cast & crew of 30 SYVHS students, Radium Girls will be presented Thursdays through Saturdays, November 23rd through 25th and November 30th, December 1st & 2nd at 7:00 PM in the high school’s Little Theatre.
Set in Orange, New Jersey between 1918-1928 28, Radium Girls tells the true story of female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting radium dials – watch dials and hands with self-luminous paint. After being told that the paint was harmless, the women in each facility ingested deadly amounts of radium after being instructed to “point” their brushes on their lips in order to give them a fine tip; some also painted their fingernails, faces, and teeth with the glowing substance. Five of the women in the plant challenged their employer in a case over the right of individual workers who contract occupational diseases to sue their employers under New Jersey’s occupational injuries law, which at the time had a two-year statute of limitations, but settled out of court in 1928.
In true “docudrama” style, McKinnon and The Group have utilized a very spare stage set with a continuous informational slideshow, identifying the scenes and changing scenes and their time-frames, as well as showing actual photos of some of the girls and some of the radium-products allowed on the market before the true extent was known of the deadly risks of radium exposure.
Radium Girls contains mature themes and may not be suitable for younger children. For more information call 688-4214, or follow the Theatre Group on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/133685146642614