BHS Bobcat Drama to present ‘Radium Girls’ in April

BHS Bobcat Drama has started rehearsing its upcoming production of D.W. Gregory’s gripping drama, “Radium Girls”.

The play, published in 2000, like the 2017 book by Kate Moore, and the 2018 Netflix movie of the same title, tells the haunting true story of teenaged and young women employed to work with radium-infused paint to produce watch and clock dials during World War I and in the decade that followed. The dial companies worked to provide altimeters for military aircraft, and glow-in-the-dark watches for soldiers in the fields. There were factories in Ottawa, Ill. (The Radium Dial Company); and Waterbury, Conn. (The Waterbury Clock Company), each established during the 1920s, but the earliest was the United States Radium Corporation, located in Orange, N.J., which is the setting for “Radium Girls”.

At first thought to be a cure-all for many ailments and diseases including cancer, radium was discovered by Pierre and Marie Curie, along with fellow physicist Henri Becquerel. The trio was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work. However, it would not be long before many of the young dial painters would exhibit various aches and pains that would contradict the initial fervor for radium. Maladies included anemia, jaw malformations, fragile teeth, leukemia and even bone cancer. The mission of the young women to prove a connection between the radium-laced paint and their medical problems would be an uphill battle, but eventually they would succeed in bringing radium to its true dangerous light, and in holding the companies for which they worked, responsible. “Radium Girls” tells their story.

The cast for the BHS Bobcat Drama production consists of Sadie Sharp as Grace Fryer; Andrew Griesenauer as Arthur Roeder; Averie Engel as Kathryn Schaub; Paige Thurman as Irene Rudolph and Harriet Roeder; Rachel Jordan as Mrs. Fryer; A.C. Calvillo as Tom Kreider; Reece Williams as Markley, Drinker and Reporter; Keily Diaz as Sob Sister; Jacob Ellis as Berry, Martland, Store Owner, Flinn and Dr. Knef; Ford Byerley as Von Soschocky, Lovesick Cowboy and Board Member No. 2; Karson Casey as Lee, Bailey and Venecine Salesman; Shelby Allen as Marie Curie and Board Member No. 1; Ekira Hernandez as Society Woman; Aubrey Lee as Shopgirl, Clerk and ensemble; Molly Staats as Photographer, ensemble and understudy; and Austin Hattenhauer as Photographer 2, Male Shopper, Board Member No. 3 and ensemble.

Stage managers for the show are Ashlee Bills and Jaden Hood. Crews will be announced soon. BHS Bobcat Drama will present “Radium Girls” for the public at 7 p.m. Thursday and Saturday, April 11 and 13, and at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, April 14. Director Meleia Lewis wants to issue a special thanks to Platinum Producer, CS Bank, for helping to make this production possible.