February 25 - March 4, 2022
Written by Melanie Marnich
Directed by Ibi Owolabi

Longstreet Theatre 

Based on actual events, These Shining Lives reaches back almost a century to uncover a harrowing but inspiring history that still has profound resonance to our society today. Through poetic and powerful language, playwright Melanie Marnich tells the tragic story of women in the 1920s hired to decorate watch faces with glow-in-the-dark, radium-based paint, a substance their employer refers to as “medicinal.”  As they begin developing serious illnesses from radiation exposure, they soon realize the company’s complicity and wage a legal battle to bring it to justice.  The case would go on to have far-reaching consequences on workers’ and women's rights in our own time.  

“Perfect, touching and wistful…beautifully tragic.” — Talkin’ Broadway