‘These Shining Lives’ Brings Light to the theatre and dance department
“These Shining Lives” opens on Oct. 3 at 7pm at The Empty Space Theatre in High Point. Photo by highpoint.edu
By Sydney Gross
Staff Writer
High Point University’s Department of Theatre and Dance is excited to be opening their season with their fall play, “These Shining Lives.” The play was written by Melanie Marnich and is directed by HPU faculty member Doug Brown. The show will begin at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 3 through Oct. 5 and
Oct. 7 through Oct. 9 at 2.pm. All shows are at the Empty Space Theatre, and tickets can be reserved on the High Point website at www.highpoint.edu/theatre/tickets.
“These Shining Lives” tells the true story of four women who worked in a watch factory in Ottawa, Illinois, in the 1920s. The play dramatizes the danger laborers faced in the workforce during this time and the lack of concern by companies for protecting the health of their employees. Catherine and her three friends, Pearl, Charlotte and Frances, were slowly dying from the radium that they were ingesting to paint the watch faces at the Radium Dial Company.
Ragan Keefer, a junior theatre major, plays Pearl, one of Catherine’s friends who is the innocent jokester of the group. Keefer expresses that the sisterhood and camaraderie that the girls have in the play are what really drew her into the script.
“If I could describe this show in three words, it would be women empowering women,” Keefer said. “This show stresses the importance of fighting for what is right. The women in each facility had been told the paint was harmless. They subsequently ingested deadly amounts of radium after being instructed to “point” their brushes on their lips in order to give them a fine point. Some also painted their fingernails, face and teeth with the glowing substance. The women were instructed to point their brushes because using rags, or a water rinse, caused them to waste too much time, and the women were there to make money.
The High Point Theatre Department is also partnering with the biology department on this project to help make their audiences more aware of radium poisoning and the impact that it had on the many women in the different factories across the United States.
On Oct. 3 and 4, viewers can come early to check out exhibits in the Mobile Lab and hear presentations from the faculty of the Wanek School of Natural Sciences from 6:45 p.m. until 7:20 p.m., and again during an extended intermission. It will be parked in the courtyard outside of the Empty Space Theatre. The Mobile Lab will also be a talkback with Brown, joined by the chemistry, biology and physics faculty from the Wanek School of Natural Sciences 15 to 20 minutes after the show on Oct. 4.
Among the cast is Olivia Leenhouts, an avid senior member of the theatre department. She plays Charlotte, the modern woman of the friend group. Leenhouts wants the audience to know that these are real people with real families. Her three words to describe the show are empowerment, struggle and triumph.
“You don’t get to see very often a show centered around four very strong women,” said Leenhouts. “It is a strong female bond that does not revolve around a man, husband or boyfriend,” Leenhouts said. “It is good to know about the history and not let the story of these women die because it does not deserve to die. They were women fighting when they should not have had to fight.”
The cast includes other theater veterans like Hunter Brown, a freshman business management major. He has been involved in theatre all of his high school career and heard about how talented HPU’s theatre department was. Hunter has the opportunity to play not one, but four characters in the play: the Radio Announcer, Mr. Grossman, Company Doctor and Dr. Rowantree. With such a mix of characters,, Brown has been able to see the play from all different perspectives. Some of his characters were advocates for radium merely businessmen, while others, specifically Mr. Grossman, were fighters for the women.
Brown enjoys this show as it “makes a lot of commentary on things that are happening to this day.”
For many of these members, the theatre department at High Point University is truly special. Leenhouts expressed that there is only one show in her entire four years here at High Point that she has not worked on. Her professors have been helpful, and all of her peers are loving and supportive. Keefer said that this department is inclusive and that she loves that they try to work with other departments as well.
Tickets for “These Shining Lives” can be reserved at www.highpoint.edu/theatre/tick. The showrunners encourage people to come see their production if they enjoy a powerful story of love, loss, hard work and a fight for what is right.