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.

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.

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For more info check out the MVLCT website