Calvary Lutheran High School will host its annual One Act Festival this weekend, and its pair of single-act productions is an intentionally dissonant one.
The first story to be performed Friday and Saturday will be a historical drama, “These Shining Lives,” about the notorious true stories of “Radium Girls.”
Director William Schatte said “Radium Girls” were women in the 1920s and 1930s who worked in factories with glow-in-the-dark paint. The glow at the time came from the radioactive element radium.
Radium was a cultural rage, marketed as a medicinal panacea as well as for its use on time-keeping dials in watches and clocks, Schatte said. The constant exposure to and ingestion of the radioactive paint ultimately didn’t turn out so well for the women who worked with it, though.
“The story tells of the girls and how they’re so excited to be climbing to the top of the economic ladder, and they all begin to get sick,” he said.
Contaminated parts of the women begin to glow as the radioactive element is absorbed into their bodies, which only signifies the more serious, lethal ailments to come such as bone cancer — especially in their jaws — and necrosis of the liver.
However, Schatte said, “It’s not a victim story. It is more a story of triumph in the face of adversity.”
He said “These Shining Lives” is a story about the women staying strong even as their bodies deteriorate — and as the women take on the company that employed them then denied responsibility for their illnesses. The women take Radium Dial Company to court, however, in landmark cases in the workers’ rights movement.
“It’s a big historical case, and we get to tell one part of it,” he said.
At one act in length, the production is only 35 minutes long.
“It is a real quick splice of life, but there’s a lot of powerful story in the 35 minutes,” Schatte said.
“These Shining Lives” will be followed up with the comedy “Superhero Sanitarium.”
“Whatever play you’re doing, I want to do something that’s the completely different,” director Tyler Zander said.
Schatte added: “Both of them will leave you with something to think about.”
Zander said his production of “Superhero Sanitarium” is about a “real-life perspective of what would happen if you would be living a real life with these ridiculous powers.”
The characters in a sanitarium have super-human abilities, but with a catch: running at super-speed, but only backwards; being able to read minds, but so many indiscernible voices are heard at once that all the character can do is blurt things out at random; controlling the weather, but only while dancing; and being able to telekinetically turn the lights on and off, but being afraid of the dark.
A “big-city journalist” initially doesn’t realize the fellow characters have these powers, though, and investigates the truth.
“One of the biggest draws to our production is it is a very funny experience” for all ages and anyone who’s ever dreamed of putting on a silly costume, Zander said.
The productions at Calvary Lutheran High School at 2525 Route B in Jefferson City will begin with “These Shining Lives” on Friday at 7 p.m. and run through 9 p.m. The festival Saturday will be from 2-4 p.m. Both shows will be performed both days in the same order, and both will feature concessions.
The cost of admission is a freewill donation.