Theatre Arts: These Shining Lives, November 2019

These Shining Lives

 will be performed at Price Theatre on

Wednesday, November 13, 2019, at 7:00 p.m.

Thursday, November 14, 2019, at 7:00 p.m.

Friday, November 15, 2018, at 7:00 p.m.

Saturday, November 16, 2019, at 7:00 p.m.

Sunday, November 17, 2019, at 2:30 p.m.

This play is based on the true story of young women who worked for the Radium Dial Company in Illinois in the 1920s, contracted radium poisoning as a result of following their employers’ instructions, and had to fight to receive compensation for their illness.

The library has the script of the play (call number PS 3613 .A767 T44 2010, though as of November 1^st it’s missing from the shelf).  If you want to read other short plays by Melanie Marnich, we have the following:

• “Quake,” in Humana Festival 2001:  The Complete Plays (lower level, call number PS 634 .H86 2001)
• “Tallgrass Gothic,” in Humana Festival 2004:  The Complete Plays (call number PS 634 .H86 2004)
• “The Right to Remain,” in The Best American Short Plays 2003-2004 (PN 6111 .B47 2003-04)

You’ll find articles about and reviews of the play in GALILEO, for example:

• “Radium Dial Play Delivers Public Health History Lesson to the Masses.”  Nation’s Health 9.3 (Apr. 2009) p. 3
• “A Radiant Remount.”  American Theatre 27.10 (Dec. 2010) p. 12

You’ll also find interviews with Marnich about the play.  Here are two:

• Washington Post, April 20, 2008
• TCA Regional News:  Chicago, March 1, 2018

Historical background

If you want to read about the historical background, the Lewis Library has some e-books:

• Clark, Claudia.  Radium Girls:  Women and Industrial Health Reform, 1910-1935.  Chapel Hill:  University of North Carolina Press, 1997.  (We also have a print copy, call number HD 6067.2 .U6 C55 1997, but it’s checked out as of 11/1/19)
• Moore, Kate.  The Radium Girls:  The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women.  Naperville, IL:  Sourcebooks, 2017.
• Neuzil, Mark and Bill Kovarik.  Mass Media & Environmental Conflict:  America’s Green Crusades.  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Sage Publications, 1996. (Chapter “Mainstream Media:  The Radium Girls,” pp. 33-52)

Again, you’ll find articles in GALILEO, including:

• Carter, Laura Lee.  “Glow in the Dark Tragedy.”  American History 42.4 (Oct. 2007) pp. 32-37.
• Mugdan, Walter.  “Glow-in-the-Dark Watch Dials, the First Toxic Tort Litigation, and the Birth of the Occupational Safety Movement.”  Practical Lawyer 63.1 (Feb. 2017) 32-35.
• Cooper, Dan and Brian Grinder.  “The Playboy and the Radium Girls.”    Financial History 91 (Summer 2008) 13-15.

Use the Atlanta Constitution 1868-1984 database for newspaper articles from the time, such as these from February 1938 and April 1938 mentioning Catherine Donohue, one of the characters in the play (scroll down for the paragraph on Donohue in the second article).