SJ
Shelby Jacobs
  • theatre
  • Class of 2018
  • Waterford, Wis.

Shelby Jacobs appears in "Radium Girls" at UW- Whitewater

2015 Dec 1

"Radium Girls," a production that tells the true story of the young women who worked at the United States Radium Factory at the height of World War I, comes to the stage at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Shelby Jacobs, a sophomore theatre major from East Troy, Wis., performs as Mrs. MacNeil and Mrs. Fryer and understudy for female swing.

This production follows the factory girls hired to work at the United States Radium Factory in Orange, New Jersey, at the height of World War I. The women were hired to paint soldiers' watches with glow-in-the-dark, radium-based paint. Soon enough, the girls become sick and people called for justice.

"It's a relatively new play presented in the style of Living Newspaper, a style of theatre that is presented in the way a newspaper would be," said director Jim Butchart, professor of theater and dance.

Beyond the unique presentation of this production, the audience will be sure to come away from this play with a lesson in history.

"I hope the audience will understand the history of this and I hope they will see the contemporary parallels," Butchart said.

The production opens Tuesday, Dec. 1, at 7:30 p.m. and continues through Saturday, Dec. 5, in Barnett Theatre in the Greenhill Center of the Arts.

For more information, including tickets, visit:

http://www.uww.edu/cac/theatre-dance/radium-girls