This fall, the Monroe-Woodbury Drama Club performed “Radium Girls”, a retelling of the legal battles that a group of watch dial painters fought after they contracted radiation poisoning at their workplace.

The play opened November 7 and closes with two shows on November 8— the first of which featuring a cast of understudies.

This play takes place in the late 1910s and early 1920s when most men were off fighting World War I. Women took over the workplace at home, painting watch dials for the soldiers to use. They licked the paintbrushes to get the bristles to a point, but leftover paint in the brush contained radium, giving the girls radium poisoning. Their lives and court cases are re-enacted in this play.

According to the play’s website, the story follows Grace Fryer, a dial painter. Her adversary is her former employer, Arthur Roeder, “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.”

“This was my first acting role that I ever did, because I’ve always been in musicals, so this is the first role I did that didn’t involve singing,” says Megan Escobar, who is playing Grace, who the play is mainly focused on. “It was a big role, but I loved being able to bring voice to life through that. I loved my experience with it. I was super fun and I’m so thankful.”

Student assistant director Ethan Gordon also praised the experience.

“In the past couple of years, I’ve gotten the opportunity to try a whole bunch of different aspects of theater, and it’s really just all been great,” says student assistant director, Ethan Gordon. “I’m having a great time learning how to do new things. So, yeah, I’m having fun. It’s a great experience.”