This past weekend, November 7-9, the Oak Forest High School Drama Group put on its fall play, D.W. Gregory’s Radium Girls. One of the most popular plays in recent years, Radium Girls explores the true story of the young women in the 1920s who applied self-luminous paints containing radium to clocks and watches. Although there were three U.S. factories in which this work took place, Gregory focuses on the one located in Orange, New Jersey.
Instead of allowing the workers to use rags and water to clean their brushes, U.S. Radium, their employer, insists that they use their mouths to “point” the tips and keep the process moving along efficiently. The young women receive the reassurances of their supervisors that this is a perfectly safe practice. Furthermore, because the girls earn several times more money than other young female workers of the time, and their work often feels more like an art, some of them find themselves working at U.S. Radium for extended periods of time. The process subjects many of them to severe radiation poisoning. Tooth and bone decay, radium jaw, anemia, and death ensue. Some of the young women, facing a dramatic decline in their health, nevertheless mount a courageous legal struggle against the company. This litigation, fought out between workers robbed of their youth and a company enjoying financial success, provides the focus of Gregory’s play.
Mr. Rojek’s tech crew built a convincing 1920s set, complete with period brickwork. Mr. Krystosek’s casting made effective use of a blend of veteran and newer actors, providing the occasion for long-standing performers to lead the way and others to develop their skills for the future. Senior Julia Mueller, a stage veteran who played the tragic lead character, Grace Fryer, had a chance to explore the personal cost of loyalty to one’s family and one’s employer. Mueller did so with great emotional sensitivity, which she revealed last year as the lead in Romeo and Juliet and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Junior Joey D’Amico, landing a major role as Arthur Roeder, the president of U.S. Radium, played a convincing corporate executive whose intelligence and ambition conflict with what he knows to be a growing safety problem in his factory. In the role of Kathryn Schaub—a spirited young woman who fights for others, only to see her own health then go into decline—senior Dylan Stachura depicted a worker whose strength fades faster than we might think possible. Stachura also provided her creative vision as the costume designer for Radium Girls, bridging the gap between the 1920s and the 2020s.
Given the number of characters in the play, several actors had to take on the challenge of multiple roles. Bryanah Carrera, a senior, played both Irene Rudolph, an early victim of the factory, and Diane Roeder, the wife of U.S. Radium’s president. It was in this latter role that Carrera had the opportunity to explore a character who benefits from a fatally flawed system; at first questioning her husband’s practices, Diane comes to realize how deeply implicated the family, its reputation, and its personal fortune really are.
Another actor with multiple credits was junior Alex Prim, who played Dr. Sabin von Sochocky, the chief scientist for U.S. Radium. Left to grapple with what radiation poisoning has done to him, personally and professionally, von Sochocky finds little consolation. Prim played an arrogant and, by turns, remorseful von Sochocky. He also played U.S. Radium’s lawyer, Edward Markley—and, as if to test his acting range, a cowboy.
Senior Mac Kolasa, who was both lawyer for the plaintiff Raymond Barry and Frederick Flinn, Ph.D.; Kyle Kidd, who portrayed Tom Kreider and Dr. Knef; Benjamin Pivoney, who played company vice-president C.B. Lee and others; Paxton Neth, as reporter Jack Youngwood and others; Kaitlin Westberg, who played Cora Middleton and others; Danica Hollis, who was Mrs. Michaels and others; and Camilla Laloyo as a clerk and others, all played multiple roles, which called for great versatility.
Cora Lorentz played the world-famous scientist Marie Curie, who co-discovered radium. The cast also included Maria Carrillo as Mrs. MacNeil, Autumn Fuentes as Sob Sister (Nancy Jane Harlan), Suzy Lawson as Miss Wiley, Hailee Rininger as Mrs. Anna Fryer, and Lucinda Hartig as Harriet Roeder.
As is so often the case, the production crew provided the unsung heroes of the play. Gabriela Acena, Dominic Cristobal, Kylie Blaettler, Santiago Cruz, and Brayden Ratleph did the sets and scenery. Kylie Blaettler, Santiago Cruz, and Amanda Rieman formed the running crew. Gabriela Acena operated the light and sound board. Dominic Cristobal and Ryan Ostiguin handled the spotlights. A team composed of actors Mueller, Fuentes, Lorentz, Neth, and Rininger, together with Alaina Thompson, did the makeup. Mueller was the makeup and prop designer.
Other contributors included assistant director and producer Mr. Pazik, stage manager Isabelle Wilk, and her assistant Kourtney Odems. The play never would have happened without the personal efforts of at least two dozen people.
In the end, although a century separates the characters and their world from our own, the timeless themes of Radium Girls break through to a contemporary audience. Scientific progress, corporate greed, the bonds of friendship, individual reckonings with mortality—these are ideas that speak to us just as clearly in 2025, thanks to the admirable work of an OFHS cast and crew.
