Northview's drama department was able to showcase another play, however this time, deviating from its usual lighthearted satire or family comedy, they chose to dramatize the events of the early 1900s tragedy of the Radium Girls. The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint; on a thrilling chase pursuing justice for their deteriorating health and unknowing dangers to the radioactive watch paint, the main character of the play, Grace, sues the US Radium Corporation, who are in charge of making the watches. Throughout the play, her face continues to melt off due to the radioactive paint on the brushes having contact with their lips after every lick. As a result, many deaths ensue, strengthening Grace's case and the company's guilt. Faced with the moral dispute of loosing the case after the deaths of so many workers, or fight the case to uphold their name, the company is faced with a choice. Sadly, Grace was never able to finish her case, as she died before it finished, and the company chose to settle. The true story is one of a tragedy, however, the bravery of the girls to stand and fight while faced with the end in sight is a story that should never be forgotten; decades later, they shine on.
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE STAR:
MEET "GRACE", PLAYED BY INNARA JADAVJI
What was your role in radium girls?"I play the role of Grace Friar and I am excited to bring the...she kind like ... decays [laughs] through the whole show. She’s dying, but it's so cool to play with her character physically and how she goes from childish and immature to literarily a corpse."
What got you into acting?"I’ve been acting since, I do mostly musical theatre, but I’ve been acting since I was in the 4th grade. And it was just…I just really enjoyed it, I started out singing a lot so I really enjoyed singing and then acting was always kind of like a second thought to me like I never really considered myself an actor. And the I just started doing musical theatre more and more and I realized that oh acting is actually a part of that but yeah its fun I enjoy it a lot."
What do you love most about being on stage?"I think, the way I see it is like, when you’re on stage its like all of your problems kinda go away, and you just let all your problems go and everything thats troubling you in your real life and your personal life you kinda just forget it and you channel your character and what they want and what they’re going through. Once you rehearse enough it kinda just becomes muscle memory, both your words and your actions, so it like a free space where you can pretty much artistically choose what you want to. Just make choices that don’t really affect your real life. You’re doing everything through your character which I think is really cool, its like you’re playing…what’s a game, ok it’s like you’re playing poptropica [laughs] because everything you’re doing is through your poptropica character but once you turn the computer off, your life is the same. I am genius."
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Why Radium Girls? What made you audition?"Funny story, technically, I auditioned for Puffs (our next upcoming show!) because I’m not gonna be here for one act (so I have an understudy obviously) and so I told them I’m not auditioning for radium girls , I’m auditioning for puffs because I can’t be there for radium girls but I was cast anyways. Once I got the role though, ok cause like I wanted to audition for Radium Girls cause I had read the show before and I thought it was really cool. I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it because they don’t cast understudy for this type of stuff and you half to be able to do both shows or you’re not in it which is why I didn’t even think of auditioning. But once I got the role I was really excited that I got to do the show anyways."
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What do you want the audience to take away from your performance?
"Oooo ok, [laughs] so the story is talking about corporate America and how companies only care about money rather than the wellbeing of people, so I just want people to realize that people matter. If you come to the show you’ll see! The main corporate head doesn’t care that people are literally dying in front of him due to the watches, so I just hope people understand that people matter. "
What does this show mean to you?"Story wise I think as I said it’s really important (first of all this is a real story) to portray that and maybe don’t put radium in people’s mouths so yeah like I said before people matter (#spreadlove) but doing the show wise I was just really excited because this is actually the first play I’ve ever been in, yeah cause like I said I’ve only been in musical theatre so this is my first play ever and I’m really excited and fortunate to be have gotten to do my first play with my friends."
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What three words would you use to describe your
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If you had to describe Radium girls in three words, what would they be?
"Oh no, I need a second to think about this I can’t just spit out words. Um well kind of like you said tragic, because (spoiler alert) pretty much everybody dies at the end, like even if you don’t see it, because everyone in the story was exposed to radium but they all were going to die. I don’t know, I literally can’t think of anything. This is such a hard question."
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE STAGE MANAGER:
MEET ISABELLA LEVITT
What is your job as stage manager?"My job is essentially to make sure everything that needs to be done gets done the way its supposed to be done. Its kinda basically making sure everyone else does their jobs and delegating out some things that need to be done."
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Is this your first time being a stage manager?"Yeah! This is the first time I’ve done anything with stage managing. I’ve never even been an assistant stage manager. I had to figure out what I was doing as I went which I feel bad for the rest of the cast and crew because we were all kinda figuring it out as we went along. But I think alls well that ends well and I don’t know I think we have a pretty good show."
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