THESE SHINING LIVES
by Melanie Marnich
February 27 – March 21, 2026
Directed by Anne Harper
Producer: Nick Munaretto
OUR TALENTED CAST:
Upper row:
Meredith Mullen as Catharine Donohue
Gavin Magrath as Mr. Reed
Andrea Constantine as Frances O’Connell
Lower row:
Hanna Savchuk as Pearl Payne
Erik Bracciodieta as Tom Donohue
Melly Magrath as Charlotte Purcell
About the play:
Based on a true story, These Shining Lives chronicles the lifetime of Catherine Donahue from the early age that she lands a job painting the hour markings on watch faces using a radium compound that glows in the dark. It is a rare chance for women to hold a well-paying job in the 1920s, and not only does if offer financial independence, but also a camaraderie outside of the home between several strong and like-minded individuals.
Despite the resulting complications in the household, and the navigation of new roles and expectations in what appears to be an evolving world, they become a team on the factory floor. However, it all comes at a steep cost, and the ladies of the Radium Dial Company are considered to be quite expendable. But theirs is a story of survival in its most transcendent sense, as they refuse to allow the company that stole their health to kill their spirits—or endanger the lives of those who come after them.
“To sit and to listen to the stories of these incredible women — to absorb them right into your very bones — evokes the raw emotion and provokes the deep thought that demanded change in their day, and continues to inspire today.”
~ Kingston Whig-Standard
About Melanie Marnich, the playwright:
Marnich was born in Duluth, Minnesota, of second-generation Yugoslavian and Italian parents: her father a cement plant worker and miner, her mother the office manager for the local Teamsters office.
In college, Marnich was a journalism major with an emphasis in advertising. “I wound up doing and loving TV and radio commercials.” She loved the job, but felt limited writing in spurts of 30 or 60 seconds. “Then I got the theater bug.” Feeling that she had some of the right instincts, but wanting a more formal degree, she went back to graduate school to learn the ins and outs of becoming a playwright.
Her other plays include: Quake, Blur, Tallgrass Gothic, Cradle of Man and A Sleeping Country. Marnich has also written, worked and produced for HBO (Big Love), Showtime (The Affair), AMC, Silver Pictures, TNT, Netfix and Amazon.
Her plays have been produced at Manhattan Theatre Club, The Kennedy Center, Dallas Theater Center, Baltimore Center Stage, Steppenwolf Theatre Company and The Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival of New American Plays.
“I don’t just want to write for the sake of writing. We write to connect with people. I always thought, when I was writing plays, not just why this matters to me but why it matters to others. You have to follow this spark inside of you of what stories you choose to tell”
~ Melanie Marnich
About Anne Harper, the director
Anne first acted on the Village Players stage in Alan Ayckbourn’s Season’s Greetings in 1987, and was last seen on stage as Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit. Her first directing gig was The Odd Couple in 1995. Anne was also a long-time president of the Village Players Board of Directors.
Among the other plays Anne has directed at Village Players are Rumors, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Impossibility of Now, Anybody for Murder, Perfect Wedding, Powers and Gloria, Murder in Green Meadows, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Dangerous Obsession, Tartuffe, Cyprienne, Humble Boy, The Winslow Boy, Private Lives, Cause Célèbre, All My Sons, The Real Inspector Hound/After Magritte, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Sea Marks, Bus Stop, and My Three Angels. Recent directing gigs elsewhere include Omission and Gloria’s Guy (Alumnae), A Lion in Winter (Amicus) and Speaking in Tongues (East Side).
Anne adds this about These Shining Lives:
“Given the present world political climate including possible dismantling of protective agencies to our south and elsewhere, this is history of which people should be made aware; disinformation is not a new idea. These Shining Lives is a play for our times.”
Village Players 