Campus Scene
Theatre Production Tells a Visually Stunning, Surreal Tale of Injustice
- Radium Girls, directed by James Peck, was put on by the Department of Dance, Music & Theatre in March.
- Students staged the production, which tells the visually stunning and dark tale of Grace Fryer, a radium watch dial painter, as she fights for her day in court.
- In the pivotal courtroom scenes, the stage is under a giant glowing clock, symbolizing how the watch industry monopolized the radium girls’ time and lives, trying to postpone any justice until they died from the radiation poisoning.
- The production was literally aglow, as many special effects evoke the radioactivity that is invisible but omnipresent in the play. An unseen character, with no intention of its own, radioactivity is nevertheless altering every character’s arc.
- Production designers used glowing paint, make up, and backdrops to illustrate the story.
