Ross Valley Players Presents THESE SHINING LIVES

The fourth play of Ross Valley Players 89th season is These Shining Lives which chronicles the strength and determination of women considered expendable in their day, exploring their story and its continued resonance. These Shining Lives by award-winning playwright Melanie Marnich, premiered in 2008 at Baltimore Center Stage.

This play is based on a true American history story of labor and science: Young women -- as young as 15 -- were hired by Radium Dial and other companies to paint the faces of clocks and watches. To do this, they were instructed that the most efficient way was to create a fine point on the brush with their lips, dip the brush into the radium paint, then paint and repeat. As a result, they ingested quite a big of radium and began to be diagnosed with necrosis of the jaw and joints and other diseases.

This is a story about the Ottowa, Illinois women who worked for Radium Dial Company. The play begins in 1922 when Catherine begins working at this company and ends in 1938 with the winning of a lawsuit that led to today's OSHA worker protection laws and guarantees.

The Dramatists Play Service, Inc. (DPS) book cover states, "Catherine and her friends are dying, it's true, but theirs is a story of survival in its most transcendent sense, as they refuse to allow the company that stole their health to kill their spirits -- or endanger the lives of those who come after them." The quote in the play that drives Rodgers: "Catherine: This isn't a fairy tale, though it starts like one. It's not a tragedy, though it ends like one."

Rodgers shares her thoughts about the playwright, "Melanie Marnich's writing is very tight, very spare, and she's unafraid to use to capture the spirit of this event and its impact on these ordinary women. The play moves at a brisk pace and focuses on the individual rather than on the broader social issue."

Rodgers continues, "My work with Melanie Marnich's lovely play is to tell the story truthfully and simply. The focus is on the people, the real people of Ottowa, and on providing the superb actors portraying them a creative space wherein they can find the characters' essence and truth. While Marnich has fictionalized the characters, possibly because there was no attempt to know them while they were living, the human experience is universal."

To order tickets, call 415-456-9555, ext. 1 or visit www.RossValleyPlayers.com