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Category: Events

Live Theatre – These Shining Lives – MVLCT

Website AdminEvents, News, Theatre
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banner graphic for these shining lives performance

The Mount Vernon-Lisbon Community Theatre is presenting These Shining Lives in the Uptown Theatre.  Shows are March 6th, 7th, 13th and 14th @ 7:30 pm with a matinee March 8th @ 2 pm.

This isn’t a fairy tale, though it starts like one. It’s not a tragedy, though it ends like one.

Catherine Donohue’s opening line to the audience in These Shining Lives sets the tone for a play that is hard to categorize.

Based on the true story, it shows us the lives of the “radium girls” who painted dials with glowing radium-infused paint to create watches that could be read in the dark.

Catherine Donohue and her coworkers at Radium Dial in Ottawa, Illinois, were among the many women who worked in conditions that exposed them to a radioactive chemical that made them ill. Their fight for workers’ compensation even as they were suffering the crippling effects of the radium inspired a nation of workers to demand safe conditions from their employers.

Their efforts are described in historic accounts as heroic, but they saw themselves as ordinary people. As Catherine says: “But we’re just girls who wanted to work.”

With its simple set, small cast and Melanie Marnich’s poetic script, this story is one you will remember.

The show runs a little over an hour with no intermission; talkbacks will be held after the Saturday and Sunday shows for those who wish to stay.

Get Tickets Online    You can also purchase tickets at the performance.

Included in the Shining Lives cast are:

  • Kim Benesh
  • Schuyler Bieber
  • Larry Hansen
  • Kellyn Howell
  • Craig Jarvie
  • Mary Morgan-Blacharski
  • Kim Novotny
  • Braden JP Rood
  • Jennifer Smith
  • Lisa Smith
  • Len Struttmann

Kami Zbanek Hill is directing.

For more info check out the MVLCT website

Mount Vernon-Lisbon Community Theatre Logo

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Cory Booker for President – Meet and Greet with Cory

Website AdminEvents, Library, News
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photo of Cory Booker at campaign event

We are pleased to announce that this Thursday, January 9th at 2:30 PM – 4:30 PM U.S. Senator and Democratic candidate for president Cory Booker will be available to discuss his vision for Iowa and the rest of the country as he campaigns for the 2020 Democratic nomination.

The meet and greet will be held in the Library at the First Street Community Center.

From the Cory for Iowa Facebook page:

In America, our spirit is being tested by those who want to tear us apart. We have a choice to make: break into factions or rise in common purpose.  Join our campaign, and we will rise together:  corybooker.com/join.

Join Cory Booker in Mount Vernon where he’ll share his vision to empower Iowa by expanding opportunity and justice in every community. Doors open at 2:00.

Follow Cory as he travels from river to river reminding Iowans that together, we will rise.  #IowaRise

For more information about this event:  Cory Booker meet and greet in Mount Vernon, Iowa.

For more information about Cory Booker: CoryBooker.com

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MVLCT – Auditions for These Shining Lives

Website AdminEvents, News, Theatre
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Poster image for the Shining Lives audtions

Auditions for Mount Vernon-Lisbon Community Theatre’s spring production of These Shining Lives by Melanie Marnich will be held on Sunday, January 19 and Monday, January 20 at 7 PM in the Uptown Theatre.

Roles are available for a range of ages but actors need to be at least 18 years old. There are main roles for four women and two men; smaller roles may be filled by three women and two men. No preparation is necessary. Kami Zbanek Hill is directing.

Questions may be addressed to [email protected].

These Shining Lives is a fictionalized account of the real life “Radium Girls” of the 1920s and ‘30s who painted watch faces with radioactive paint that glowed in the dark. The play centers around four women who work in the Radium Dial Company factory in Illinois and are exposed to toxic and deadly levels of radiation. Their story of bravery and determination to create better workplace conditions and safety regulations is an important but not widely known chapter in the social history of our country.

American playwright and television writer Melanie Marnich is best known for her work on HBO’s drama Big Love and the Showtime series The Big C.

Characters

  • Catherine Donohue (F) a worker at the factory
  • Charlotte (F) a worker at the factory
  • FRANCES (F) – a worker at the factory
  • PEARL (F) – a worker at the factory
  • Tom Donohue (M) — Catherine’s husband
  • MR. REED (M) – The overseer of the factory

Ensemble Roles

  • DR. ROWNTREE – He extols the benefits of radium to cure common illnesses
  • LEONARD GROSSMAN (M) – A brash lawyer
  • COMPANY DOCTOR – a pawn of the Radium Dial Company
  • RADIO ANNOUNCER –makes a performance out of selling radium to the public
  • DAUGHTER – Catherine’s daughter
  • SON – Catherine’s son
  • DR. DALITSCH – An incredibly honest doctor
  • JUDGE – Appears in the courtroom scene of Catherine’s trial versus the radium dial company
  • REPORTERS 1 & 2 – Speaks outside of the courthouse during Catherine’s lawsuit. They provide the opinion of the public
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Two New Discussion Groups – Public Welcome

Website AdminEvents, Focus Room, Library, News
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Inner Dimensional Engineering Agreement Sangha (IDEA Sangha)

We are a product of Evolution, a very slow process. Once evolved as Humans we progressed very rapidly through inventions which gave us a succession of ever improved tools for easier and yet easier living. All these inventions dealt with things around us. However, the evolutionary process being very, very slow our physiology and psychology have not kept up to deal with the consequences of what we have created. For example, various chemicals while most of them made our life easier also prove to be dangerous to health and environment. This has a compounding effect into the future affecting us and our children and so on.

This situation calls for our turning inwards to change our attitude to do what need to be done in directing Human evolution from now on for our survival. This is being Mindful.

Therefore, I have created a forum, Inner Dimensional Engineering Agreement Sangha (IDEA Sangha) for like minded people to discuss what attitudinal changes we are to adopt.

We will meet on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of each month at 1PM, in the Library.

Please address any questions to [email protected]

Intelligent Discussion and Expression Association (IDEA)

I moved to Mount Vernon from Hawaii and am enjoying living in such close-knit community. I want to be involved and engage other community members toward a common understanding in these contentious times.

We all have lots of pent-up thoughts going nowhere and wasted. I have started a discussion forum, Intelligent Discussion and Expression Association (IDEA), for open dialogue on broad subjects — such as, “why we do things the way we do without a second thought?” — where people are free to express their innermost thoughts in a friendly surrounding and get response.

We meet on 2nd Mondays of each month at 6PM, in the Focus Room.

Please address any questions to [email protected]

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