What would you do if you were unwittingly poisoned for years and didn’t find out until it was too late? That tragedy actually occurred more than once in history—but one story seems to shine above all the rest.
In 1917, women working in factories were required to paint watch dials with a radioactive paint and were slowly poisoned until their deaths. In the U.S Radium Corporation in Orange, N.J, each girl was required to lick their paint brush to acquire a fine tip and paint their glow in the dark dials to send off to the military. The soldiers needed to see the time in the dark, so they made their clocks glow. But those wouldn’t be the only things glowing. Little did those girls know, they were ingesting radium, and their jaws were deteriorating by the minute. They later found out that the company knew the paint was toxic, and didn’t take any action regarding the girls ingesting it. Radium Girls follows the story of Grace Fryer who acts as a driving force in the lawsuit against the U.S Radium Plant after she and many of her coworkers/friends fall ill. So, what does this have to do with Mountain Ridge? Well, we’re getting there.
One day, a woman named D.W. Gregory picked up her pencil and started writing. Gregory wound up publishing the play “Radium Girls” in the year 2000; based on the true story, Radium Girls has been performed all over the country to this very day, and Mountain Ridge High School has decided to be one of the schools to do it.
I recently had the opportunity to speak with the director of the show, Merry Gordon, and asked her what drew her to choose Radium Girls as her 2025 show. “Radium Girls centers history on women’s experiences and shows a completely different side of the 1920s” she said. “It’s a fast-paced moving show that I knew would stretch my actors.” Gordon believes people should see Radium Girls because “It’s just as relevant now as it was in the 1920s. I think the audiences will see how the themes resonate across the years. This was such a challenge to put up in about six weeks, but I know that the show will look good, thanks to our amazing student-led design team, and my actors doing justice to the story. Ridge theater is growing, and I’m so excited to put so many new faces on stage this year.”
I also spoke with junior Lily McConaghy, who plays Grace Fryer, the lead in the school’s production. She said she was able to connect to her character. “I think everyone has had a moment where they have been looked down on or not taken seriously. So I really connected to Grace’s frustration.” She added that her understanding of the story grew as she learned more about the history. “I knew a little bit because it was grazed over in history, but it was not nearly as deep as this.” Like Gordon, McConaghy believes “people should come see it because it’s a new perspective of history, which is really interesting to all the history people out there. Also, it is a really cool show. We have glowing aprons, broken jaws, and so much more.”
After one final interview with senior Adriana Kodofakas, who plays Mrs. Macneil/Sob Sister. Kodofakas explains that she “chose to audition for Radium Girls because I wanted to start and end my years acting in theater with Gordon’s shows. The very first play I was in was Hope and Heartache Diner, and now my very last fall play I’ll be in, will be Radium Girls.” I also asked her if she knew anything about the show going in, and she responded, “I knew the basic history because events like this always intrigued me, but I didn’t know Grace’s story. I think putting everything in a specific person’s perspective makes it that much more tragic.”
I asked Gordon, McConaghy, and Kodofakas all the same question at the end: How do you hope audiences will feel as they leave the theatre on show night? Kodofakas responded, “I hope audiences will leave feeling anger and sorrow on the girls’ behalf. They were dealt a massive injustice and their story should convey this and spark a fire in the audience.” McConaghy added, “I hope that they will be more aware of the negative sides of the past, and what the girls specifically had to deal with.” While Gordon added, “I hope they’ll be inspired and moved. I want them to see the humanity behind history.”
Radium Girls is truly a remarkable show, and it deserves the chance to leave our hearts glowing as we leave the Mountain Ridge theatre on October 9th and 10th. Tickets are live on GoFan right now, and they are only $7.00 each. That is including a $6.00 ticket price and a $1.00 fee. The show begins at 6:30 p.m and your ticket purchase is good for either show night. So if you are still reading, take the chance. Come see Radium Girls. You might be surprised by how much it sticks with you. Hopefully this lovely cast will get to see you in their audience as they bring the lives of these characters back—if only for the night.
