This past Sunday, after digging out my driveway, I attended a stirring performance of Melanie Marnich’s “These Shining Lives,” which was presented by the Upper School theater troupe in the black box theater of The Schiff Center.

This intimate legal drama evokes the courage of the “radium girls,” hundreds of young women who, in the early 1920s, worked in watch factories, painting numbers with radium-based paint. Scores of these young women suffered life-threatening cancers after years of exposure and eventually, filed suit, the first of its kind, against their employers.

In an incredibly moving way, the play traces the arc of these women’s lives: their soaring pride in finding their first work outside their homes and in helping to support their families, their joy in connecting with one another, their confusion at the early onset of their symptoms, their initial reluctance to stand up to largely male, corporate authority, their mounting anger at being lied to and misled, their courage in combatting overwhelming social and economic pressure within their communities, and finally, the extreme cost and ultimate triumph of the protracted legal battle.

The play raises important questions about the role of women, the responsibilities of employers, and, ultimately, about what gives life meaning and purpose.

One of the most moving aspects of Sunday’s performance was how close in age these young actors are to those whose lives they enacted and how different — and yet, in some ways how very much the same — their world is to the world of the play.

What an incredibly valuable experience for these young people to immerse themselves so deeply in the lives of these heroic young women, to feel their joys and their struggles, and to wrestle with the profound ethical and legal questions the play raises.

Congratulations to all the cast and crew and to Upper School theater teachers, Marc Raia and Trey Tatum, for mounting such a powerful show!

Christopher P. Garten
Head of School