Pre-Show Activity: Newspaper Theatre

Ideally, your aim is to familiarize the student with the play’s historical milieu prior to attending the performance. Thereafter, the class’ newspaper theatre performances can be compared and contrasted with the play’s events after they have seen it.

• Download the Radium Girls Newspaper Theatre Lesson as one full PDF

Procedures:

1. Divide the class into groups of four.

2. Distribute copies of each of the four newspaper clippings related to the Radium Girls to each group:

I. New York Times Article – February, 22 1903 – “Radium”

II. New York Times Article – May, 30 1925 – “New Radium Disease Found—Has Killed 5”

III. The Reading Times Article – June, 2 1928 – “Simple Things of Life Bring Most Cheer to Women Who Know They Soon Will Die”

IV. Chicago Herald Examiner Article – February, 27 1938 – “Ghost-Women Await Court's Decision on Radium Poisoning”

Note that the New York Times articles are double-sided, with the reverse featuring a more legible transcription of the articles. The Reading Times article should be legible as is, and the Chicago Herald Examiner article is largely illegible, but the caption and image are clear and purposeful to illuminate the idea of ‘wet-lipping.’

3. Have each group read through the four articles. This can be accomplished silently or aloud.

4. Once they are through reading, they should discuss which aspects of the articles seemed interesting. Their goal is to identify a version of these events that they can recreate. As such, they should choose enough material to cover the content while being selective as they don’t want to just read all of the articles to the class.

5. After they have decided on which pieces of the articles to share, they need to come up with a performance mode. I recommend sharing the “Techniques of Newspaper Theatre,” edited from a longer list by Uri Noy Meir which the groups can choose from. However, if you feel the students need more support, you might provide instruction about just one technique, model what that would look like in practice, and then set the groups to work.

Among the techniques to choose from are Simple Reading, Rhythmical Reading, Parallel Action, Improvisation, Reinforcement, Concretion of the Abstract, and Integration or Field Interview.

6. Once the groups have rehearsed their presentation, they should share their work with the rest of the class.

Extension Opportunity

Have students research more about the Radium Girls. They will discover that there are many resources available online, so focus their research. Ask them to find newspaper or magazine articles from a specific time period – and track the lives of the women and how modern writers have looked back on their untimely deaths.

Discussion Questions

1. What did you learn about the Radium Girls as a result of this exercise?

2. Based on what you learned, what do you expect to see in the performance?

3. What responsibilities do artists have when performing historical content? Why?

Individual Lesson Materials:

I. New York Times Article – February, 22 1903 – “Radium”

II. New York Times Article – May, 30 1925 – “New Radium Disease Found—Has Killed 5”

III. The Reading Times Article – June, 2 1928 – “Simple Things of Life Bring Most Cheer to Women Who Know They Soon Will Die”

IV. Chicago Herald Examiner Article – February, 27 1938 – “Ghost-Women Await Court's Decision on Radium Poisoning”

V. Techniques of Newspaper Theatre, edited from a longer list by Uri Noy Meir

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