AHS Winter Play Approaches

Arrowhead’s winter production, Radium Girls, is approaching. The play, directed by Arrowhead English teacher Marilyn Markano, will be performed on February 8th, 9th, and 10th in the North Campus theater. Tickets can be ordered online for $8.00 starting January 23rd through a link on the homepage of Arrowhead’s website.

D.W. Gregory’s historical docudrama Radium Girls takes place in 1926. At the time, radium was a miracle cure and glowing watches decorated with radium were the latest rage—until the women who painted them began to get sick. This production follows a dial painter named Grace Fryer as she battles for justice in court. As her case progresses, Grace finds herself fighting against her family and friends on top of the US Radium Corporation. The people closest to Grace fear her hunger for justice will backfire.

“[The play] is actually very historically accurate,” says Markano. “I read this new published book called Radium Girls by Kate Moore, and she actually had worked on the play first and then was so intrigued by it that she went ahead and did more research and wrote this book.”

Just like any time you turn something into a story or a play, Markano says there are some inaccuracies. Most of the characters in the play are real people from history or blends of real people, but there are a few fictional characters. Markano says there are also some real people that don’t appear in the play, because it’s difficult to include it all.

“The timeline is a little bit off, but generally speaking I would say an audience member leaving the theater would feel like they got a really good vision of what happened, how it happened, whom it happened to,” says Markano.

Markano describes the Radium Girls story as compelling. She says it’s a story not a not of people know about, including herself before she stumbled upon the play, so it’s an interesting learning experience. Markano says she didn’t realize there were so many parallels between the play and our world today until they started reading the production outloud.

“Even though the story is almost one hundred years ago, the parallels of some of the corporation deceit and the media deceit almost parallels a lot of things that go on today, where everyone is going out for themselves. And though I’m not trying to make any kind of political statement, and that was not the intent of doing the play, it is interesting to see even just the influence that media has for good or bad,” says Markano.

Last spring, Markano read the play and began to personally prepare for it over the summer. Auditions were held in November, and the cast and crew have been preparing for the performance since then.

Markano says assigning roles is always a challenge because Arrowhead has so much talent to choose from, so it’s a matter of choosing the best talent for the role.

Twenty two students will take on the roles of more than thirty characters. Sophomore Sarah Niemcyzk plays the main character, Grace Fryer. Twelve of the twenty two cast members will be playing two or more roles.

“This play was written for four actresses and five actors to play thirty five to forty characters. I’m trying to honor that concept of doubling roles. I had to really look for actors who could portray different personalities, different characters,” says Markano. “We have to find costumes that are quick changes and will help the audience know that it’s a different character even though they’re played by the same actor.”

Markano says there are also girls playing males roles in this production. She says this is partly due to who auditions, so she had to audition females in male roles to see who could best pull it off.

Markano, who has been directing at Arrowhead for seventeen years, says that being a part of any theater production is beneficial to students because it requires constant problem solving and critical thinking. Markano never comes into a show with a full idea of how it’s going to go. Instead, she works closely with the cast to form the production.

Teamwork and leadership are also two basic skills that students learn, no matter what show they’re involved in, according to Markano.