Radium Girls

by Sarah (Class of 2012)

Tomorrow is opening night for Radium Girls, my eighth and final CSG theater production.  

To quote my friend Victoria, Radium Girls follows the stories of a few young women who file suit against the U.S. Radium Corporation, as radium goes from a miracle discovery to a cancerous nightmare. It portrays all sides of the story, from the young dial painters ingesting radium through the paint, to the powerful businessmen trying to avoid financial ruin.

Check out our video for the show!

The show calls for as few as 9 and as many as 36 actors.  This production we have five boys from Bexley, St. Charles, and Metro who fulfill some of the male roles.  Everyone except for the lead role is double, triple, or quadruple cast.  I play Mrs. Roeder, the wife of the president of the U.S. Radium Corporation, and Ms. Berry, the attorney prosecuting U.S. Radium Corporation -- two diametrically opposed characters.

In order to create distinct, believable characters for our roles, we spent one entire rehearsal developing our characters.  We filled out a word document detailing both textual clues about my characters' personalities and our own imaginings for her likes, dislikes, and economic and historical background.  The play is a historical drama set in the 1920s, so we have fabulous costumes, wigs, and hats, many of which our costume crew found at vintage stores.