The Radium Girls cast reflects on the powerful play

Last weekend, Lipscomb’s Theater Department put on a production of Radium Girls. Based on the true stories of women affected by radium poisoning during WWI, the show meant more to the director and actors than simple entertainment. Radium Girls was their way of giving women a voice.

Leslie Marberry, a Lipscomb alumnus, directed the production. “It’s nice to come home,” she said of returning to campus. “It’s so cool and kind of surreal to step back in this space and see these college students who are going through the same things I was.”

Though Marberry works on various projects within a year, Radium Girls stands out to her. “My favorite shows are powerful shows about women,” she said.

Radium Girls follows the story of Grace Fryer. Fryer fought for justice for both herself and other women poisoned by radium. In WWI, these women were tasked with making radium-infused watches for soldiers. The radium would make them literally glow. This exposure, however, led to various health complications, but the women affected saw little justice.

Anna Jones plays Fryer in the show. Radium Girls is her last show at Lipscomb and her first non-musical production. For her, it’s also one of the most important productions she’s been a part of.

“[The show] shows how important it is not to stop fighting,” said Jones. “You can’t give up. Ever.”

The heavy themes in the Radium Girls story led Marberry and Jones to take a deeper look into the script. Early on in the production, Marberry had the 10 actors in the play reflect on what the story means to them and their experiences as women.

“I wanted to hear what this means to you guys, and how you connect to this story, and what you deal with day in and day out as women,” said Marberry. “And I had my guys sit and listen, and the question was, ‘How does it make you feel for these women that you adore to say these things?’ 

For Marberry, this was a crucial element of preparing for the production. “It’s the best thing to dip into something like this because of what they have to go through all the time and have since they were little girls, since before they can remember,” said Marberry.

The importance of this story made bringing Radium Girls to Lipscomb’s campus particularly important. “Lipscomb is a school that likes to tuck everything under the rug,” said Jones.

Marberry, who graduated from Lipscomb in 2014, shared a similar sentiment. “This story is important anywhere but especially in spaces that are maybe a bit more conservative,” she said. “Everyone has a woman in their life who has changed it for the better.”

Jones hopes that Radium Girls could serve as an inspiration to other women on campus. “It’s so important for women specifically, because there are so many powerful women in this story,” she said. “It’s women’s voices. It’s women being thrown to the side when they shouldn’t have been.”

“At the center of it all, it’s Radium Girls,” stressed Marberry. “How cool is it that this is a show specifically for us?”

Marberry also hoped that Radium Girls would challenge its audience. “A question I’ve asked is ‘What is the cost of speaking up when people tell you being quiet is safer?’ We see the pain and hurt in the world, and do we feel safe enough to fight for it and speak up about the harm?” she said. 

Though Radium Girls takes place almost 100 years ago, Marberry believes women can still see themselves in the story. “At the root of it all, it’s still stuff we see today, where women are extremely undervalued and taken for granted or mistreated in the workplace,” she said. “It is so important to tell their story. They were silenced for a long time when their voices mattered. Women in the world continue to be silenced, and our voices matter.”

“We don’t talk about this in history class,” said Marberry. “But these women were real. And, in fact, they’re still glowing today.”

Read Marberry’s artistic statement below:

This show isn’t just a historical drama — it’s a story about voices that were ignored, bodies that were exploited, and truth that refused to stay buried. 

At its core, this play asks what it costs to speak when silence is safer, and what courage looks like when the world is telling you to look away.

We explore themes of labor, gender, power, faith in institutions, and the slow, difficult pursuit of justice through this show. These women were ordinary people who did an extraordinary thing simply by insisting on their own worth. Their fight wasn’t loud at first — it was patient, persistent, and deeply human. “Deeply Human” is what I really wanted to focus on with my performers.

My hope for this process was to honor both the intimacy and the urgency of the Radium Girls’ story. It’s such an ensemble-driven play, and every voice in this room matters — just as every voice in these brave women’s story matters.

Featured image courtesy of Lipscomb Theater.