The OFHS Drama Group has been known to take on new and challenging fall plays. Last year, for example, it put on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, keeping its early modern English intact but staging it with a compelling, futuristic twist. This year’s fall play is Radium Girls, which runs this Friday, November 7, from 7-9 pm; Saturday, November 8, from 7-9 pm; and Sunday, November 9, from 2-4 pm.
Radium Girls, by D.W. Gregory, portrays the tragedy of a group of young women working in factories that paint clock and watch dials in the 1910s and 1920s. Applying self-luminous paints that contain radium, a radioactive element, and trained to “point” the tip of their brushes with their mouths, which their employers assure them is a safe practice, the young women eventually find themselves experiencing a variety of devastating and life-threatening health problems. While Kate Moore’s The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women, became a bestseller in 2018, and Netflix independently produced a film called Radium Girls in 2020, Gregory’s 2003 play really packs a dramatic punch, making it ideal for high school stage productions.
The actors work under the direction of Mr. Krystosek, while the tech crew reports to Mr. Rojek. Dozens of OFHS students have brought their talents together to perform and stage Radium Girls. It’s well worth seeing the play and supporting them this weekend.
