These Shining Lives

By: Melanie Marnich

These Shining Lives is based on the true story of four women who worked for the Radium Dial Company – a watch factory based in Ottawa, Illinois. It tells the moving story of 4 extraordinary women as they develop a strong bond of friendship while they work in a factory where they paint watches with radium powder without knowing that the work is so dangerous it will kill them. The play highlights the courageous women who choose not to be victims but to fight for justice as well as their very survival. Set in a time before workers’ safety held little concern for employers. The Radium Dial Company is one of the most egregious examples of a company that disregards all warnings and studies that show the work as highly toxic and dangerous for the women who paint their watches and made them rich. Melanie Marnichs’s moving play is an exploration of industrial neglect and an uplifting tribute to the courage and strength of the radium girls and the resilience of the human spirit. Directed by Juli Bacon