Fishers Theatre Students Bring to Stage ‘Radium Girls’

Fishers High School’s next theater production teaches perseverance and bravery.

“‘Radium Girls’ is about the fight for justice and understanding that your action has consequences,” said Emma Rund, director of Fishers High School Theatre.

The show is two nights only, tonight (Thursday) and Saturday. Both performances are at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for students, with tickets available online or at the door.

Rund went on to share the play’s synopsis.

Through the story of Grace Fryer, a dial painter who worked for the U.S. Radium Corp., during the 1920s, and Arthur Roeder the COE of the U.S. Radium Corp., we see the dichotomy of these two stories and how the discovery that Radium is poisonous affects both of these characters in different but equally horrifying ways, Rund said.

It’s a gripping drama based on the true story of female laborers who were poisoned and killed by their factory’s radium-based paint.

In 1926, radium was a miracle cure, Madame Curie an international celebrity, and luminous watches the latest rage, until the girls who painted them began to fall ill with a mysterious disease.

Rund chose “Radium Girls” because she read the play while in college and really enjoyed it. “When thinking about what show I wanted to choose for the play this year,  it was No. 1 on my list. It is perfect for drama for high school students to perform since the content matter is not too hard or unreliable.”

Inspired by a true story, “Radium Girls” traces the efforts of Grace Fryer, a dial painter, as she fights for her day in court.

FHS senior Grace Mandel plays Grace Fryer. Mandel has been the lead for the last couple of years at Fishers Theatre, and is a four-year member of Fishers’ competitive unisex show choir, Sound.

“Getting cast as Grace Fryer was a dream that I had fostered for a really long time. As a matter of fact, I had been using a monologue of hers whilst prepping for my college auditions nearly a year prior,” she said.

“I had spent the summer, autumn, and winter of 2022 intimately getting to know the bravery and conviction within the life stories of Katherine Schaub, Irene Rudolph, and Grace Fryer. When it was announced at the beginning of the year that ‘Radium Girls’ was going to be the spring play, I was immensely drawn to the possibility of being a part of a project with such an important message to share, a timeless one; that the erasing of women’s voices from history and from memory is, unfortunately, no new idea, but with the will to learn and the humanity to listen, each of us hold the power to change the world in which that tragedy rings true,” Mandel said.

Why did Mandel want to portray the role of Grace? “She is a representation of what could happen to any person under the circumstance that the value of human life is weighed against the American dollar.”

Description of the character? She was “a teenage girl with hopes, dreams, and aspirations just like any one of us,” Mandel said.

“In actuality, Grace did not choose the life of a hero; she was simply a person who made the decision every day to be a person who cares. In many ways, I feel a true kinship with Grace. I see so much of myself in her spirit and there are even occasions (many occasions) when I’ll be listening to a song in the car and think of how much she’d love it, or I’ll be reading a book and wonder if she would have gravitated towards the same genres as me.” She said, “When you perform a play depicting real people, you have a responsibility to regard the story you’re telling with a sizable degree of sincerity. Lifetimes of love and heartbreak and passions and disappointments are being entrusted to you with the agreement that you will validate them, regard them with care, and portray them in as genuine a light as possible.”

Mandel said, “I would say to any person looking to purchase tickets (for this play), this story is one of massive importance and is sure to leave you with an enriched sense of empathy and inner strength. In my biased opinion, it is and will always be worth the watch.”

After high school, Mandel plans to earn her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from Rider University in New Jersey and looks forward to continuing on her theater journey. “However, I can honestly say that I would not be where I am, ready to pursue my passions and move out into the world, without the love, support, and inspiration I’ve derived from the community of Theatre Fishers. I will always be thankful for the joy and the memories,” she said.

Mandel is among 20 FHS students cast in the production plus an additional 20 students doing crew. Auditions were three months ago, in February. “We do standard auditions where they do a monologue and then call students back to read scenes together and cast from there,” Rund said.

The crew is volunteer but most students who are on the crew have been on the crew for all Fishers Theatre productions, unlike actors who change from performance to performance, she said.

The set is designed by students and made by the students in FHS’s Tech One class. Andy Smith, department chair and technical director, teaches the tech classes and oversees the crew. Katelyn King is going to do all of the special-effect makeup, which should be fun to see.

Rund is a costume designer, so she oversees the costumes. “We have students who are student heads for the crew, so we have stage managers, deck captions, fly masters, props masters, grips, lighting, and sound board operators that are all students,” she said.

“So it is really me and Mr.Smith who oversee all the students but the students do most of the work,” Rund said.

“This production has been amazing to work on,” she said. “These students have worked so hard to research and understand the lives of these women in the 1920s and really worked hard to bring these characters to life and truly tell the beautiful horrifying story.”

-Betsy Reason writes about people, places and things in Hamilton County. Contact The Times Editor Betsy Reason at betsy@thetimes24-7.com