When I first read the script for “Radium Girls”, I was moved. That this occurred 20 miles from Bogota, NJ, 100 years ago. As I researched the actual story (I highly recommend Kate Moore’s book, The Radium Girls:The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women), searched for these young women’s final resting places, I connected with their struggle and felt for their misfortune. We have the “Radium Girls” to thank for many of our standards of care, testing procedures and safety measures in working with radioactive materials to this day. I wanted to stretch our students with a more serious drama. What better story to have them dig into and share with our community.
While this show has some very endearing and warmhearted moments, the playwright, who is also from New Jersey, has tried to accurately portray what these young girls and their families were up against. She also took some artistic liberties to highlight the overarching struggles that were faced by the hundreds of dial painters that were ultimately killed by radium. In the early 1900s, the world raced ahead with a new and amazing scientific discovery, without really understanding the consequences. Unfortunately, when they finally did, it was more about covering up and protecting “what’s yours" instead of really taking responsibility and helping. In the 1990s The US Radium Corporation factory site was listed as a Superfund Site and cleaned up. You can visit that corner of Alden Street and High Street in Orange today and see a soccer field in its place.
As a community can we honor these girls, their struggle, their stories and take to heart the message? Let us work to take care of one another, no matter the cost.
A special thank you to my community - Mr. Hughes who helps and supports me in so many ways so that I can create, Mrs. Hochgesang & Mrs. Feliz-Patron, creative powerhouses and excellent examples of talented and hardworking women. Mia Sneyers, a talented, caring and creative young woman, who has taken on the charge of Stage Manager and is paving the way for others to learn and grow in the arts. Special thanks to Mr. Brian O’Boyle and Mrs. Natalia Kadish, our talented art teachers who jumped in and helped with printing and student painting. Thank you students David Beria and Orlanny De Le Cruz for sharing your talents with us. Thank you parents, you help make all of this come together with your support and service.
We work this weekend to honor Grace Fryer, Katherine Schaub, Irene Rudolph, Molly Maggia and so many others (most dead by the age of 21) who are buried throughout North Jersey. Their bones are still glowing to this day.
Mrs. Wendy Hughes, Director
