false 0 0 2 4 2009-01-31 296 true 1252 http://www.rivendelltheatre.net/images/art_for_web.jpg 2009-01-08 Thursdays - Saturdays at 8PM and Sundays at 3PM 1054 Midwest Premiere The first Mainstage production of Rivendell Theatre Ensemble's 2008-2009 season is the Chicago premiere of Melanie Marnich's These Shining Lives, a play that chronicles the women of the Radium Dial Company. Paying a considerably higher wage than was average for the time, Charlotte Donahue finds work painting watch faces at the Radium Dial Company. Finding friendship and independence in her work, Charlotte blossoms as a watch dial painter. To paint her watches more rapidly, Charlotte adopts the method her more experienced colleagues have perfected. Using their lips, they twist the tip of their tiny paintbrushes to a fine point. By doing so, the women of the Radium Dial Company inadvertently ingested lethal amounts of radium: the unique element that makes watches glow in the dark. These Shining Lives follows the ten-year span between Charlotte's first days as a watch painter to her final days as she fought fiercely - though dying from brutal radium poisoning that painfully degenerated her bones - as part of a class action law suit to hold the Radium Dial Company accountable for its negligence. 2009-01-26T12:10:00-08:00 1 1 80