Bradley Announces Its 2016-17 Theatre Arts Season

Bradley University's Department of Theatre Arts has announced its 2016-17 season, with four shows that mix a surreal dystopic fantasy with comedy horror, heartbreaking history and a little Shakespeare just for fun.

On tap are Anne Washburn's Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, where future survivors of some sort of apocalypse comfort themselves with performances of an old episode of The Simpsons. That will be followed by Emergency Prom by Steve Moulds, with a high school dance thrown by the kids who didn't fit in at the regular old prom; Melanie Marnich's These Shining Lives, a look at the short, tragic lives of "Radium Girls," who endangered their lives while painting watches that glowed in the dark; and Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's bittersweet comedy with mismatched lovers, identical twins and the triumph of chaos over order.

This is how they're describing the upcoming 2016-17 season:
 
Mr. Burns:  A Post-Electric Play by Anne Washburn. Music by Michael Friedman and lyrics by Anne Washburn.
September 22 - October 2, 2016
Part thriller, part musical, Mr. Burns asks how the stories we tell make us the people we are. In a near future where a cataclysmic series of nuclear disasters has left America without electricity, infrastructure, or mass communication, a small group of survivors huddles around a fire trying to remember the dialogue from a popular episode of The Simpsons. Seven years later they have become a theatre troupe, traveling the lawless, ravaged country to stage bits of The Simpsons in exchange for food and shelter. 75 years later still, the epic story of the nuclear disaster has become myth, enacting in musical theatre form the creation story of a new society and the dimly recalled saga of a revered hero named Bart.

Emergency Prom by Steve Moulds
November 10 - 13, 2016
A play featuring our fabulous freshman class It's 1996, a time before texting, Tinder, and Snapchat, and the misfits of Glen Burnie High hated last weekend's prom. What's an unlikely band of outsiders to do? Throw the prom they should have had, a do-over prom, an emergency prom, where Gus and Corey won't break up, where Stephanie and Billy will finally get together, where Patrick might get lucky, Manuel will have the "high school moment" he dreams of, and Melissa will get to dance with the secret love whose silence is breaking her heart. A hilarious, heartfelt look at a group of friends taking destiny into their own hands.

These Shining Lives by Melanie Marnich
February 16 – 26, 2017
In the 1920s and 30s, hundreds of Depression-era women in Central Illinois enjoyed well-paying jobs for the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, about 70 miles from Peoria. There they painted faces onto watches and clocks with luminescent paint made from radium—an element whose toxicity was never explained to them—until their hands began to glow in the dark and their health problems grew too serious to ignore. Based on the historical record this haunting, inspirational play celebrates the bonds of friendship and solidarity that unite four young working women; the conflicts they share; and the vindication they seek that may or may not come in time. "Perfect, touching, and wistful..." —Talkin' Broadway

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
April 20 – 30, 2017
"If music be the food of love, play on..." The perennial favorite and arguably Shakespeare's most transcendent comedy. A tale of young love in all its excess diverse, abetted by mistaken identity, gender confusion, unforgettable songs and exquisite poetry—not to mention some of Shakespeare's most vivid clowns and one of the greatest practical jokes in theatrical history. Originally written to celebrate the end of the Christmas season in the court of Queen Elizabeth, our production will herald the end of the school year and the beginning of summer.

Luminous "These Shining Lives" Lights Up Heartland Theatre

At the beginning of Melanie Marnich's "These Shining Lives," the main character, a woman named Catherine Donohue, steps forward to tell us that her story is not a fairy tale, even though it begins like one, and it's not a tragedy, even though it ends like one. That establishes some major points in this play -- that time is precious, that this will not be a straightforward narrative, and that the real Catherine Donohue may be long gone, but she has still has something to say, something she will say, directly to us.

Marnich frames her story around women: Catherine and three friends named Charlotte, Frances and Pearl, who work together at the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, Illinois, in the 1920s and early 30s. These ladies bond over their shared work, enjoying a sense of independence and financial security as working women, but their joy is short-lived as, one by one, they begin to feel ill, to fall apart physically as a result of the poisonous radium-laced powder they work with. The company hired only women, and even though they knew the risks presented by radium, instructed their workers to sharpen their tiny paintbrushes by licking them before every stroke, as they painted with radium to make watch and clock dials glow in the dark.

Catherine's story is real. The real Catherine Donahue decided to fight the company that denied any wrongdoing, to try to get a legal and moral victory even as she wasted away to nothing, physically broken but spiritually unbowed. For the Heartland Theatre production of the play, directed by Don LaCasse, lovely Colleen Longo plays Catherine with joy and spirit, making her end even more tragic.

She also shows good chemistry with Paula Nowak as feisty Charlotte, Reena Artman as gentle Frances, and Christine Juet as goofy Pearl, the one who keeps popping up with bad jokes. LaCasse has not directed them to physically indicate the characters' decline, meaning they don't adopt the withered postures or twisted limbs I've seen in previous productions. A bit of that might've been helpful just to illustrate the difference, but the message is still clear: These are young women, made old well before their time.

The two men in the cast are also good, with Jared Kugler showing warmth and honesty as Catherine's husband, among other roles, and Todd Wineburner tackling the good (a lawyer who fights for them) and the bad (the boss at the watch factory).

Again and again, LaCasse's production brings home the time message. You can hear it in Isaac Mandel's sound design, with the ticking clock, and see it in the surrealistic watch pieces painted on the back wall of the set (designed originally by Michael Pullin and then put into play by Jake Wasson.) Harrison Hohnholt's lighting design is also important to this luminous story.

In the end, "These Shining Lives" is poignant, tragic and important. We shouldn't be so callous with the lives around us, whether it's part of the job or not.

A panel discussion on the issues raised in the play will follow the 2 pm matinee performance on Sunday, September 16. Panelists will include Sandra Harmon, Emeritus Professor of History and Women’s Studies Program at ISU and Ed Carroll, Professor of History at Heartland Community College, who is originally from Ottawa and whose family was affected by the tragedy. This discussion is free and open to the public, whether you've seen the play or not.

If you have seen "'These Shining Lives" and want to learn more about the Ottawa Radium Girls, the 1987 documentary "Radium City" is now available on Youtube in its entirety. What that documentary will tell you is that women like Catherine worked, women like Catherine died, women like Catherine were buried, and then their remains were dug up and tested, the factory (housed in a former high school) was turned into a meat locker (yes, a MEAT locker, with people's food stored there) and eventually razed, and radioactive rubble dumped all over town. Who did the dumping? More citizens of Ottawa, male this time, once again not protected properly from the toxic mess they were working with.

In 2011, a statue was commissioned to memorialize the Radium Girls, and Chicago Magazine reported that the radioactive pollution remained in Ottawa.

THESE SHINING LIVES
By Melanie Marnich

Heartland Theatre Company

Director: Don LaCasse
Scenic Designer/Tech Director: Michael Pullin and Jake Wasson
Lighting Designer: Harrison Hohnholt
Stage Manager/Board Operator: Andrea Davis
Properties Designer; Melissa Mullen
Sound Designer: Isaac Mandel
Costume Designer: Jeanine Fry
Assistant Director: Jared Sanders

Cast: Colleen Longo, Reena Artman, Paula Nowak, Christine Juet, Jared Kugler, Todd Wineburner.

Running time: 95 minutes, played without intermission

Remaining performances: September 14-15 and 20-22 at 7:30 pm and September 16 and 23 at 2 pm.

For reservation information, click here.

"These Shining Lives" Opens Next Week at Heartland Theatre Company

"These Shining Lives," Melanie Marnich's play about the so-called Radium Girls, opens next week at Heartland Theatre Company. Don LaCasse directs this story of women poisoned by deadly radium, all because of their jobs at a watch factory.

Marnich's play is an exploration of women's work and basic standards of job safety, as corporate greed and arrogance battle against common decency. She sets "These Shining Lives" during the days when women were entering the workforce in increasing numbers, with Catherine Donahue, the woman at the center of the play, enjoying the camaraderie, sense of self-worth, and, yes, the money she earns painting the faces of glow-in-the-dark watches at an Ottawa, Illinois, factory. But it isn't long before Catherine's dream job becomes a nightmare, as she and her friends are struck down by strange illnesses and horrible pain. One day they are young, vibrant wives and mothers, and the next, withered crones who can barely move.

But at its heart, "These Shining Lives" is about the beauty of life, about finding value in every day, about fighting for what you know is true and right, even when the odds are insurmountable and the path is very steep. The play is based on real events and real litigation that occurred in Illinois

Heartland's cast includes Colleen Longo as Catherine, with Reena Artman, Christine Juet and Paula Nowak as her friends at the watch factory, Jared Kugler as her husband, and Todd Wineburner as the boss. You can see the female part of the cast in the picture below (from left to right: Juet, Nowak, Artman and Longo on the set of "These Shining Lives.")

"These Shining Lives" begins September 6 at Heartland with a special Pay-What-You-Can Preview, followed by performances September 7-8, 13-15, and 20-22 at 7:30 pm, and September 9, 16 and 23 at 2 pm. Tickets range from $5 for students to $12 for senior citizens and $15 for general admission.

Please note that there will be a panel discussion after the matinee on September 16, with response to the play from Sandra Harmon, Professor Emerita of History and Women’s Studies at Illinois State University, and Ed Carroll, Professor of History at Heartland Community College, who happens to be from Ottawa, Illinois, and whose family was affected by the terrible events at the Radium Dial Plant there. The discussion is free and open to the public.

Heartland's production of the play is sponsored by the Bloomington and Normal Trades and Labor Assembly.

As I said before when I wrote about "These Shining Lives," if you'd like to read more about the dark days when radium was peddled as a scientific miracle and how it all played out with these young women workers at watch factories, Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer and professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin, offered a series of illuminating pieces on the subject in March 2011 at her blog, Speakeasy Science. You can read The Radium Girls, Life in the Undark, and A Dazzle in the Bones by clicking on their titles, and find out about the forensic pathology as well as the case itself.

Author Bill Koralik also has materials to contribute on the subject; he is the co-author of a book called "Mass Media & Environmental Conflict," and Chapter 8 of that book is offered here under the title "Radium Girls," including graphics and images to flesh out the story.

It's fascinating stuff, both as history and as drama. Tragic. Unbelievable. And still fascinating.

Heartland Dedicates 2012-13 Season to Michael Pullin

Heartland Theatre Company has announced that it is dedicating its 2012-13 season to Michael Pullin, the resident scenic designer, actor and colleague who passed away August 7th.

The notice you see above will appear in all of the programs for Heartland shows this season, as well as on the Season page of the Heartland website.

Pullin was a huge part of the Heartland family, and the Heartland Board of Directors felt strongly that this season should be dedicated to his memory. He had already put together plans for the scenic design for "These Shining Lives" and he also planned to star in and design the set for "Red." Michael's absence will be felt keenly in those shows, but his presence will be there, too.

"These Shining Lives," directed by Don LaCasse, is in rehearsal now, with a cast that includes Colleen Longo, Paula Nowak, Reena Artman, Christine Wing, Jared Kugler and Todd Wineburner. Playwright Melanie Marnich wrote this story about "Radium Girls," happy to have found a life as working women in the 1920s, but betrayed terribly and completely by the company they work for. As they dip their tiny paintbrushes in radium-loaded paint, licking the brushes to make precise, glowing numbers on watch dials, they are poisoning themselves. It's a play about women's work and self-worth, life and death, the freshness of youth and the tragedy of turning old before your time.

Heartland's production of the play opens September 6 with a special Pay-What-You-Can Preview, followed by performances September 7-9, 13-16 and 20-29. To see performance dates and times as well as reservation information, click here.

Auditions! Sunday and Monday Nights, Try Out for "These Shining Lives" at Heartland

Heartland Theatre Company will be holding auditions for "These Shining Lives," Melanie Marnich's poetic and uplifting play about women at work in Ottawa, Illinois, in the 1920s, painting luminous dials on watch faces, putting poison into their bodies with every breath they took, every paintbrush they touched.

In the play, Catherine Donohue and her friends are "Radium Girls," workers in a watch factory where they hand-paint numbers on the dials. The paint they're using contains radium, included to make the numbers glow in the dark. The U.S. Radium Company knew very well the stuff was deadly, but they continued to hide that fact for decades, as women like Catherine continued to lick their tiny radium-soaked paintbrushes before every stroke, just as their bosses instructed them, to keep the brush points sharp. Some even painted their hair or fingernails or even their teeth -- precursor to today's whiteners and brighteners -- with the same paint because they thought it was fun to turn off the lights and shine like a beacon in the dark when they got home.

Marnich's play shows both the joys of their work life -- making friends, earning money to contribute to their households, finding a sense of self-worth -- and the tragedy that turns vibrant young women into crones, ankles and hips and wrists splintering, spines bowed, jaws rotting, teeth and hair falling out, mouths filled with sores, riddled with anemia and leukemia, their bodies bent over like the Wicked Witch who pushed the poisoned apple on Snow White in the old fairytale. And the even bigger tragedy -- that the watch companies and U.S. Radium kept stalling and lying and trying to dodge responsibility for what they'd done -- resonates today with anybody who thinks federal regulations for occupational safety are unnecessary. Who thinks a big fat company like U.S. Radium wouldn't play exactly the same games today if they could get away with it?

For "These Shining Lives," the Radium Girls are represented by Catherine and her friends Charlotte, Frances and Pearl. Catherine's husband, Tom, her children, a few doctors, reporters and judges, and some of the brass at the Radium Dial Company are also characters in the play, with everyone except the actress playing Catherine taking on more than one role. Heartland is looking for 4 women and 2 men to fill those roles.

Auditions for director Don LaCasse will consist of cold readings from the script. Actors are asked to prepare to give a 1 to 1 1/2-minute contemporary monologue, although it is not mandatory. If you'd like to bring a headshot and resume, that would also be appreciated. Details are here, on Heartland's audition page.

This all takes place tomorrow, July 8, and Monday, July 9, from 7 to 9:30 pm on each night.

If you'd like to read more about the dark days when radium was peddled as a scientific miracle and how it all played out with these young women workers at watch factories, Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer and professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin, offered a series of illuminating pieces on the subject in March 2011 at her blog, Speakeasy Science. You can read The Radium Girls, Life in the Undark, and A Dazzle in the Bones by clicking on their titles, and find out about the forensic pathology as well as the case itself.

Author Bill Koralik also has materials to contribute on the subject; he is the co-author of a book called "Mass Media & Environmental Conflict," and chapter 8 of that book is offered here under the title "Radium Girls," including graphics and images to flesh out the story.

Heartland Theatre Announces What's Up for 2012-13

Heartland Theatre Company has announced its 2012-13 season, beginning with the very popular 10-Minute Play Festival, running from June 7 to July 1.

This year, the 10-Minute Play Festival's theme is "Playing Games," with each of the eight winning plays involving a game of some sort. The plays range from John D. Poling's "Destiny's Tug-of-War," about a divorced couple and the wife's new partner, all three worried about the dog caught between them, to Austin Steinmetz's "Word Play," about a world Scrabble champ scrambling to stay on top, and Erin Moughon's "In Memory of Calvinball," about a game whose only rule is that rules constantly change. For more information about all the plays and the "Playing Games" festival, click here. You are advised to make your reservations early, as it is always an audience favorite.

Coming in July is New Plays from the Heartland, which features three one-acts written by Midwestern playwrights just for Heartland. The New Plays' theme is "Summer in the Heartland," with the three winning plays performed July 13 and 14 in conjunction with a master class and forum conducted by Douglas Post ("Bloodshot," "Drowning Sorrows"), this year's guest playwright in residence.

The fall kicks off with "These Shining Lives," Melanie Marnich's sad and beautiful look at the women who made radium-dial watches in Ottawa, Illinois, in the 1920s. "These Shining Lives," directed by Illinois State University Professor Don LaCasse, opens on September 6 and runs till September 23, 2012. (The poster image at right is from a Chicago workshop production of the play in 2011. A previous production at Chicago's Rivendell Theatre received Jeff Award nominations for the play, director and leading actress. ISU alum Kathy Logelin played the lead role when Rivendell revived the play later.)

Next up is the blazing art drama "Red," by John Logan, which began its life at London's Donmar Warehouse in 2009, before moving to Broadway and winning the 2010 Tony Award for Best Play. The play involves artist Mark Rothko and his assistant as they prepare canvases for New York's Four Seasons restaurant, with issues of artistic integrity played against monetary success and accolades. Illinois Wesleyan's Christopher Connelly will direct "Red," with performances from November 1 to 18, 2012.

Opening on Valentine's Day, Donald Margulies' "Time Stands Still" is the first show in 2013 for Heartland. "Time Stands Still" involves a photojournalist who must decide whether she will return to a dangerous, exciting life spent on the front lines or stay where she is, in a more peaceful, comfortable place on the home front. ISU Professor Sandra Zielinski returns to Heartland to direct "Time Stands Still," which runs from February 14 to March 3, 2013.

And the last show on the schedule is Will Eno's "Middletown," which looks at extraordinary lives in Small Town, USA, over the course of a few very ordinary days. It's been compared to "Our Town," but I'd say "Middletown" is quirkier, more poetic, and a whole lot more surprising. "Middletown" received the Horton Foote Prize for Promising New American Play in 2010. ISU Professor Emeritus John Kirk will direct "Middletown" in performance from April 18 to May 5, 2013.

For more information on Heartland Theatre, you can visit the website here, with new information being added all the time.