playbill vip

The production script of this play contains a note at the beginning which reads: "This play, although inspired by real people and actual events, is a work of creative nonfiction. It moves between fact and fiction, between reality and imagination, to create a theatrical world."

As I reflected on this note, I was struck by the realization that we sometimes find our own lives filtering through that same creative process--moving between fact and fiction, reality and imagination. True stories of things we experienced seem to shift in the sands of time; real details are lost and fictional ones picked up through multiple retellings, parts are highlighted or downplayed based on our interpretation of the events, and the way we imagine things could have been somehow becomes entangled with reality.

Melanie Marnich has crafted a beautiful script about the very true story of the "Radium Girls". Many of the people in this play really existed, and some of the details are 100% true. Others have been altered for dramatic effect or to accomodate the constraints of telling the story in under 2 hours. I encourage you to research, as the playwright so carefully did, the truth of this historical event. It's easy to dismiss these women as being a casualty of century-old business practices, but the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that even now, "workers suffer more than 190,000 illnesses and 50,000 deaths annually related to chemical exposures."*

But there's another thing that hasn't changed in the past 100 years...hope. These women hoped for many things--including that they could change this world for the better. It is this message of hope that initially resonated with me and drew me to this play. It resonated with the playwright, who gave specific direction to not play these women as victims but as strong and energetic. And it resonated with all the others who helped bring this production to life. Every one of the individuals associated with this production have poured their heart and soul into creating the work you see before you today, and we pray that the hope infused into this story resonates with you as well. May it inspire you, like Catherine, to go out and change this world for the better.

Blessings,

Ryan Long

Producer/Director

*https://www.osha.gov/safer-chemicals#1