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| Poster by Laura Mauffray Borchert |
Auditions for Slidell Little
Theatre’s production of Radium Girls, will be held January 19 and 20 at 7
p.m. at the community theatre.
The cast calls for 4 to 5
men and 5 women of varying ages, with some doubling of roles. Director Sara
Pagones has left open the possibility of expanding the cast size depending on
the number of people auditioning for the play.
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. Inspired by a true story, Radium Girls traces the
efforts of Grace Fryer, a dial painter, as she fights for her day in court. Her
chief adversary is her former employer, Arthur Roeder, an idealistic man who
cannot bring himself to believe that the same element that shrinks tumors could
have anything to do with the terrifying rash of illnesses among his employees.
As the case goes on, however, Grace finds herself battling not just with the
U.S. Radium Corporation, but with her own family and friends, who fear that her
campaign for justice will backfire.
Written with warmth and
humor, Radium Girls is a fast-moving, highly theatrical ensemble
piece for 9 to 10 actors, who play more than 30 parts—friends, co-workers,
lovers, relatives, attorneys, scientists, consumer advocates, and myriad
interested bystanders. Called a "powerful" and "engrossing"
drama by critics, Radium Girls offers a wry, unflinching look at the
peculiarly American obsessions with health, wealth, and the commercialization
of science.
List of Main Characters
GRACE FRYER, a deeply
sincere woman, she is always concerned with doing what’s right. At the start of
the play, she, like almost everyone else, believes in the great goodness of
science, but through the course of the play, she faces the trials of
questioning what goodness really is as she suffers through her illness
inflicted by the radium paint she worked with.
KATHRYN SCHAUB, a friend of
Grace, she is the dreamiest and most romantic of the three girls, always filled
with ideas of love. Kathryn is the first to really sense the danger they’re all
in, and becomes truly afraid. As her own illness progresses, she becomes more
and more cynical, believing that people will do and say anything, except what’s
right.
IRENE RUDOLPH, Kathryn’s
cousin, is age seventeen at the start of the play. Later, she is in her
twenties. She is the more pragmatic of the three girls – down-to-earth,
straightforward, almost cynical, and sometimes tactlessly blunt. She is the
first of the three dial painter girls to die.
KATHERINE WILEY is the
executive director of the New Jersey Consumer’s League. She is a strong-willed
woman with moral fiber, and works to help Grace go to trial against the U.S.
Radium corp.
SOB SISTER (Nancy Jane
Harlan), is a tabloid reporter. She follows the story of the “Radium Girls” and
gives them publicity, though the presentation of her stories tend to be a
little more scandalous and outrageous.
REPORTER (Jack/Jane
Youngwood), works for the Newark Ledger He, like the Sob Sister, follows the
story of the “Radium Girls” and gives them publicity. He is perhaps a little
more dignified in his journalism than the Sob Sister.
MRS. ANNA FRYER is Grace’s
mother, and the mother of many other children. She is a pragmatic woman,
concerned with finances and all things practical.
MRS. ALMA MACNEIL is the
supervisor of the dial painter girls, and possibly Irish. She is a hard woman
who is concerned with her work and its quality, likely to a fault.
MRS. ARTHUR (DIANE) ROEDER
is Arthur Roeder’s wife. She enjoys being the wife of a company president, and
because she cares about her husband, she cares about the company. She believes
in the good that her husband is able to do.
DR. MARIE CURIE is Polish by
birth (she has the Polish accent), She is credited with the “discovery” of
radium.
HARRIET ROEDER is the
daughter of Arthur Roeder, age nine at the beginning of the play, and later in
her thirties, telling her father how he needs to find a hobby and forget the
past.
ARTHUR ROEDER is age
thirty-four at the start of the play, and sixty-five at its close. Becomes
president of the U.S. Radium Corp. It is when he takes over the company that
the switch from dial painting to more medical pursuits is made. He is a husband
and a father, and a good man, believing that what he is doing is the right
thing (he views Knef’s offer to be immoral), and the greatness of the American
Dream.
TOM KREIDER is Grace’s
fiancé, and a postal worker. Though he is somewhat concerned about money
(certainly not to the extent of Grace’s mother), he is more concerned with
getting married to Grace and starting a life with her.
C.B. “CHARLIE” LEE, at first
Roeder’s vice president of the company, later becomes president. He is a true
businessman, concerned most of all by the good of the company and the company’s
purpose: to sell watches.
EDWARD MARKLEY works as
counsel for the U.S. Radium Corp. He’s a calm, rational, matter-of-fact sort of
man. Though when threatened or in the face of danger, he can be cold, very
cold.
DR. VON SOCHOCKY is the
founder of the U.S. Radium Corp., and the inventor of the luminous paint. When
the girls all get sick, he is burdened with guilt, so he offers to testify for
them. He himself gets sick from the radiation; with the girls, it was in their
jaws, for him, it’s in his hands.
RAYMOND BERRY is the
attorney for the dial painters. He is generally concerned about the welfare of
the girls, to the point of disagreeing with Ms. Wiley’s tactic of using
journalism and public sympathy for reform.
DR. JOSEPH KNEF is at first
Irene’s dentist, then Grace’s. He is the one to advise Grace to go to the
company for help on the grounds that the company should feel obligated to help,
that there’s a moral obligation. Later, he tries to make a deal with the
company to come up with “favorable diagnoses” for any of the factory girls who
come to see him.
DR. FREDERICK FLINN, PH.D is
a fifty-something academic, warm and friendly. Works in physiology at Columbia University
