Ridge High School’s fall play, Radium Girls, follows the story of the female workers in an Orange, New Jersey factory who painted watch dials with radium paint. These workers took legal action against the US Radium Corporation after suffering severe health defects from the toxic radium exposure.
Among them, original plaintiff Grace Fryer, played by Senior Jaidyn Riley. Fryer passed away in 1933, at the young age of 34, due to health complications from the radium to which her factory work exposed her. Riley provided Devil’s Quill with a powerful statement about the impact Fryer’s story has on her, and the inspiration she has taken from Fryer’s resilience in the face of extreme exploitation. Read her statement below:
“I am blessed to be a part of such an outstanding production. I speak to the fact that Grace Fryer has been one of the most impactful roles I’ve ever played in theatre. She was a woman of advocacy and one of history’s greatest spearheading women. A woman of poise and elegance even when the walls came crashing down, frail and fragile she held them up and fought for justice and the people she loved.
In my last year in Ridge Drama Club, through every character I’ve played for truth, laughs, enjoyment, powerful themes, and youthful change I owe it to bring justice to her story and all of the malicious, and misogynistic experiences she and fellow Radium Factory workers suffered. I hope I make her proud.”
The Ridge Drama Club will perform Radium Girls November 15-16th, and tickets are available online.
(1) Photograph: “Grace Fryer” 1925, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grace_Fryer.jpg, accessed October 19, 2024
