Fall Play: Radium Girls

Northwest students are currently preparing for their 2024 Fall Play Radium Girls, which will be performed for audiences November 1-3 to enjoy.

1926 is a big year for radium in all of its innovative endeavors. From watch painting to supposedly curing any disease, — arthritis to cancer — it is safe to say radium is all the rage. That is until girls, like the main protagonist, Grace Fryer, begin to notice a pattern that is hard to ignore. Discoveries of radium harm to humans begin to flourish, but not before hundreds of girls lose their lives, even more on death’s door from sickness. Grace uses her sickness to sue the big company responsible for this negligence, but the morals of those around her may not be strong enough to allow her to receive the justice she and thousands of others deserve. This play discovers themes of misogyny, unregulated capitalism, time and death, exploitation and many more topics even relevant to society today.

Allison Goode, who plays the lead role of Grace Fryer, expressed, “I hope that the audiences will keep in mind that this happened, and the people they are seeing onstage are real people…their lives and their deaths helped put in important workplace safety.”

The production of Radium Girls started with auditions in the second week of school, and in under nine weeks, the show is almost ready to hit the auditorium stage. Mr. Tillotson, the current ninth-grade Speech and Communications teacher at Prairieview, is stepping up as a director while Mrs. Payton is away on maternity leave. He works alongside Mr. Van Alstyne, student directors Sydney LePorte, Luca Jenkin and Ava Hansen and stage managers Ella Friedel and Anya Koehler to manage a cast and crew of over fifty students. 

Tillotson stated, “In high school, I decided I wanted to be a director for students to give them the experiences and options I had, so I [am] super excited to get to do it.”

Tillotson is directing a high school show for the first time with Radium Girls, and this period piece has presented challenges and triumphs for not only him but the students and staff working relentlessly to tell a true story creatively and innovatively. 

Like all activities, the fall play emphasizes student work, implementing three student directors to practice leading a group through a production. LePorte explained, “There’s a different relationship between an adult director and a student director because I’m friends with these people, not just their director… and that gives me a unique way to approach things and maybe even more trust.”

The goal of Radium Girls is not only to put on another successful play but also to allow the audience and students involved to realize that even the smallest voices can create a large impact. As many find the Northwest Theater department to be another home, themes from every piece of work performed must be taken and applied to the world around us. 

At length, LePorte emphasized, “There’s a family to be found in this community… and that [if] a community like this can be found here, there are other places as we leave high school [as well].”