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These Shining Lives

AQUINAS COLLEGE THEATRE PROGRAM’S

These Shining Lives

THESE SHINING LIVES received its World Premiere at Baltimore Center Stage in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 30, 2008, Irene Lewis, Artistic Director; Michael Ross, Managing Director.

It was developed at Baltimore Center Stage in Baltimore, Maryland, as part of their First Look Festival; The History Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota, as part of their Raw Stages Festival; Northlight Theatre in Skokie, Illinois; Primary Stages as part of their Primetime Reading Series; and TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, California, as part of their New Works Festival.

It was commissioned by Northlight Theatre in Skokie, Illinois.

Facts from the book Deadly Glow by Ross Mullner were used with permission of the author.

Cast Biographies

Francesca Varricchio (she/her) (Catherine Donohue) is in her freshman year here at Aquinas, and she’s overjoyed by the welcoming community of Aquinas’ Theatre Program. She’s enjoyed theatre for most of her life, starting with musicals while in elementary school and continuing performing through high school. Some of her recent productions include Peggy Sue in The Plot, Like Gravy, Thickens, Anne in Anne of Green Gables, and recently Olivia in Aquinas’ production of Twelfth Night. When she’s not doing theatre, Francesca enjoys spending time with friends and family, traveling, and reading. She’d like to thank her family and friends for always supporting her, her high school theatre director, Ms. Oullette, the current director Annelise as well as the cast for creating such a positive acting environment, and for all the hard work that was put into constructing this beautiful show. Most importantly, she thanks her Mimi for being her biggest support throughout her life and says she knows you are guiding her from heaven, and she misses you everyday.

Alexzander Barr (he/him) (Tom Donohue) is a Southern California native, studying Education, with hopes of becoming a History Professor. Alex is very excited to make his AQ Theatre debut in These Shining Lives. In his free time, you can find him on the field playing for the Aquinas Baseball Team. He would like to thank this wonderful cast for welcoming him with open arms and for guiding him along on this adventure. Alex thanks you all for coming, and he hopes you enjoy the show!

Michaela Faith (she/her) (Charlotte Purcell) is a sophomore at AQ majoring in Theatre, with minors in both Business Administration and English Literature. She has acted in Failure: A Love Story as Nelly Fail, Lizzie: the Musical as Lizzie Borden, Twelfth Night as Sir Toby Belch, The Wizard of Oz as Dorothy, and much more! She is incredibly thankful for her loving family and friends for their support! She would also like to give a huge thanks to the incredible cast, crew, and Annelise. It wouldn't be the same without all of you!

Gabrielle Lee (she/her) (Frances O’Connell) is a veteran to the AQ stage and is thrilled to embark on her sixth production and junior year at Aquinas. She is studying Theatre with an emphasis on Musical Performance and a minor in Music Theory. Some of her favorite past roles include: Aphrodite (Metamorphoses), Judy Bernly (9 to 5), and Amanda/Sarah (For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls/The Actors Nightmare). Gabrielle would like to take the time to properly thank our amazing director: "Annelise, thank you so much for taking the chance on the wide-eyed freshman girl, casting her in her first-ever college play, and continuing to be a wonderful collaborator. There are truly no words to describe how grateful I am." Gabrielle would also like to thank you, the audience, for your continued support and hopes you enjoy the show!

Kerrigan Smedley (she/her) (Pearl Payne) is a sophomore at Aquinas College studying Business and Communication. She was a part of the Aquinas Student Directed One Act Festival as a light operator, as well as operating subtitles for Lizzie. Additionally, Kerrigan has played Florence in the staged reading of Waiting for Lefty at Aquinas as well as numerous roles in The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, including Woman 1, Nellie, Lucy the Dog, Star 1, Neil, and Old Doll. Kerrigan thanks her friends and family for coming to see the show and supporting AQ Theatre!

Drew Huegli (he/him) (Mr. Reed, Assistant Director) is very excited to be a part of These Shining Lives as Mr. Reed and as the Assistant Director for the show. He is a senior at Aquinas College studying Communications with an emphasis in Theatre and a minor in Biology. He has been a part of many shows at Aquinas such as, Twelfth Night (Feste), The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (Musician/Edward), Waking Nightmare (Hippolytus), The Thanksgiving Play (Caden), Failure: A Love Story (Assistant Stage Manager), The Arkansaw Bear (Mime), and Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (Ensamble). Other shows he has been a part of include, Mary Poppins (Bert), Bamboozled (Leandro), and Sense and Sensibility (Edward) at East Grand Rapids High School. Drew is extremely grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this show both as an actor and as the Assistant Director. He has learned so much from this show and can't wait to put all of his new skills to use in the future. Drew hopes that you all love this show as much as he does. This play about women standing up for themselves, finding community, and fighting for their story to be heard despite the world turning against them is even more prevalent today. The world needs to hear your story. Drew would like to acknowledge his own community that has helped him get to where he is today. Without those people he would be a very different person, and he is so grateful for all of the encouragement and support throughout the years. Finally, Drew would like to thank all of you for coming to the show and supporting the arts.

Production Bios

Annelise Dickinson (she/her) (Director) has focused on shows about actual American women, directing Beautiful: The Carole King Musical at Grand Rapids Civic Theatre, Lizzie, a rock musical about (alleged) Victorian murderess Lizzie Borden at AQ Theatre, and now These Shining Lives. She also took a slight detour to Actors’ Theatre to direct POTUS: Or, behind every great dumbass are seven women trying to keep him alive, which may as well ALSO be about real American women. A Grand Rapids native, Annelise has built a career as an actor, director, theatre educator, and voice/text coach in Chicago and throughout the Midwest. Annelise is an adjunct professor in the theatre departments of both Aquinas College (where she teaches Acting and directed Metamorphoses, Sez She, and Waiting for Lefty in addition to Lizzie) and GVSU. She also serves as an instructor and mentor with the Young Artists Studio at GR Civic Theatre. Annelise holds a BA in Theatre from Purdue University and an MFA in Acting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Scott Harman (Director) (he/him) is Assistant Professor of Theatre and Director of Theatre Production at Aquinas College. He is a PhD Candidate in Theatre at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also holds an MA in Theatre History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a BA in Theatre and Dance from Alma College. He has taught at Grand Valley State University, Alma College, Parkland College, and he is a longtime summer faculty member at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. He has worked as an actor, director, technician, teacher, and playwright at various theatre companies and schools around the country. As a scholar and researcher, he works extensively on acting theory and pedagogy.

Cristiana Worthams (she/her) (Stage Manager) is a sophomore majoring in Developmental Psychology. Her previous theatrical credits include Stage Manager for the Student Directed One Acts (2023), and Assistant Stage Manager for Lizzie: the Musical (2024). She is grateful for this amazing opportunity and hopes everyone enjoys the show!

Joel Grimsley (he/him) (Assistant Stage Manager) is a first-time actor and an international student from Ireland. He is very grateful for the opportunity to work with so many talented people and the community he has found here at Aquinas. He loves to fulfill his creative passions at any chance he gets and is a fan of classical history and literature.

JR Sanden (he/him) (Assistant Stage Manager) is a junior at AQ majoring in Biology. This is his first show at AQ, and he is happy to be part of the production team! He thanks Cristiana and is looking forward to you seeing the show!

Kelsey Edwards (she/her) (Scenic Designer/Technical Director) is a graduate of Adrian College with a Bachelor’s Degree in Theatre. She has been involved in many productions as a technical director and stage manager. Kelsey is very excited to be working as technical director for this season at Aquinas College. She also has experience in scenic design, costume design, and property master. As of recent, Kelsey has worked on The Moors (2021), Blithe Spirit (2021), Spitfire Grill (2021), and Abigail/1702 (2022) as a technical director.

Jess Luiz (she/her) (Costume Designer) has been a member of the Grand Rapids theatre community for over a decade, participating as a costume designer, performer, props designer and audience member. She studied Theatre at Northern Michigan University. Jess also serves as a teaching artist, sharing her love of storytelling and design through theatre arts with kids and adults of all abilities throughout the West MIchigan area. She is grateful to her husband Jason for his support and their two kids for providing laughter, play, new ideas, and all the hugs.

Catherine Marlett-Dreher (she/her) (Lighting Designer) has designed lights for over 300 productions in the West Michigan area, including shows for Grand Rapids Civic Theatre, Circle Theatre, Actors’ Theatre, Jewish Theatre Grand Rapids, Aquinas College, Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids Community College and Cornerstone University. Aquinas credits include: I Love you, You’re Perfect, Now Change, Distracted, Dracula, The Illusion, A Year With Frog and Toad, Love and Information, Enchanted April, Arabian Nights, Hotel Cassiopeia and many more. She works as the Production Manager and Resident Lighting Designer at Grand Rapids Civic Theatre.

Penny Avery (she/her) (Theatre Program Director) joined the Aquinas College faculty in 1994 and currently serves as both the Communication Department Chairperson and the Theatre Program Director with a PhD in Communication from Michigan State University and a MA and BS from Central Michigan University in Secondary Education with certification in English and Speech/Theatre. She was a member of the facility planning team when the Performing Arts Center was designed and loves to see the space being utilized to share arts with diverse audiences through Aquinas College’s partnerships with Community Circle Theatre and the Grand Rapids Catholic Schools. In her early years at AQ, she taught Children’s Theatre (suitably renamed Theatre for Youth and Education) and directed several productions, including The Great Cross Country Race and Charlotte’s Web. She is happy to be celebrating her 31st year at AQ!

PRODUCTION Staff and Crew

Intimacy Director	Sarah Denick
Sound Designer	Selene Rezmer
Prop Designer	Gabby Zienstra
Hair and Makeup Design/Crew	Gabrielle Lee
Wig Design	Taylor Moss
Deck Crew	Gabby Aguilar, Yashowanto Ghosh
Supertitles/Projection Operator	Carson LePage
Light Board Operator	Megan Schnipke
Sound Board Operator	Emilina Iacobelli
Wardrobe Crew	Ashlyn Armock
Hair and Makeup Consultant	Dez Begay
Graphic Design	Shannon Heldt
Theatre Office Assistant	Abby Kozal
Scene Shop Assistant	Carson LePage

Production Note

“They say you see your life flash before your eyes.
That you see a light.
That you move toward it.

But you don’t.

You see your story.
Beginning and middle.
As they were written.
And the end.
As it comes.

And when you’ve told it, then you can rest.
Then you can go home.
Then your real work is done.”

-Melanie Marnich, These Shining Lives

We are here to tell the story of four women who were real, who were friends, who mattered. We are here to honor their final wish: to keep them from becoming invisible. This is a story told through the poetry of Catherine’s memories, some parts clearer than others. If she can’t remember a doctor’s face, she might let him borrow her boss’s face, or her husband’s. If she can’t remember the exact mechanics of the work she and her friends did, she might remember how it looked to her like a strange dance at first, the elegance of a simple action the body remembers perfectly. If she can’t remember exactly how the pain started, she might remember how it moved through her, blossoming up from her toes. Her friends are there to help her remember. Her friends pick up the slack when she weakens, help her remember what comes next, help time itself pass.

In order to tell this story, our actors took a road trip to Chicago, LaSalle, and Ottawa Illinois. No one told them to go, they just got curious and went. They walked the streets these women walked, saw their landmarks, visited places important to them. They stood at the shore of Lake Michigan and looked out. In Ottawa, there is a statue to commemorate them. In LaSalle there is a Radium Girls museum. Where Radium Dial Company once stood, there is now a Subway sandwich shop with no plaque or identifying markers. Nearby there is a superfund site where the cleanup of the contaminated earth is stalled. As always, there is some remembering, some forgetting. Having walked their actual paths, these actors know and love these characters, and they dedicate themselves to lifting their humanity and their voices into the present day. What else is art for?

Kate Moore’s excellent nonfiction book The Radium Girls, which we referenced endlessly in our own research, ends with a horrifying twist: Despite Catherine Donohue’s legal victory over Radium Dial Company, this story wasn’t the end of “radium girls”. When Radium Dial was shut down, its president, Joseph A. Kelly, opened Luminous Processes, Inc. just blocks away and carried on business as usual, employing women in Ottawa, Illinois to paint watch faces with radioactive material. Once again workers experienced a variety of mysterious and devastating symptoms that were eventually linked to radium poisoning. The “lip-dip-paint” technique had been officially abolished, but the regulations that Catherine and her friends fought and died for were never enforced strictly enough to protect those who followed them. The women were forgotten and history repeated itself. This didn’t end until Luminous Processes was shut down in 1978, 40 years after Catherine’s legal victory and her death. This coda serves as a cruel reminder that under corporate capitalism, workers are expendable, and our health and safety requires community solidarity and support. We must speak out and take care of one another. It is a matter of life and death.

Special Thanks

Jordan Good, Amy Wilson, Matty Owen, Scott Harman

NOTE TO AUDIENCE:

The videotaping or audio and/or visual recording of this production is a violation of United States Copyright Law and an actionable federal offense.

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