moverskeron.blogg.se

She has worked in close collaboration with people from all the major departments, particularly in regards to prop and costume design. Circling back to her position as something of a synthesizer for all these moving parts, Coco explains that “…a lot of my work has been reading about the real history and what actually happened to these women and the horrors of it, and all the different characters, the real-life people, and then finding the balance of ‘here’s the history, here’s the play.’ And then in the middle is Rebecca’s production, and how do all three of them come together?”īridging the gap between the research Coco’s done and the director’s vision is the collaboration with Radium Girls’ various designers. Gregory took liberties to combine characters and shuffle events to create a cohesive narrative for the play, which slightly complicates ideas of historical accuracy. Coco says the key to being a helpful dramaturg is “a lot of listening and synthesizing what you’re seeing and hearing… onstage, and also from the other collaborators, and just working them all together to help hone the thing that’s being put on stage– the vision.”Ĭoco’s role is made a bit more interesting by the fact that playwright D.W. And then, just got me so excited about it, because it really does feel like the perfect combination of English and history, and theory, and also collaboration and performance, and production, and everything, and I was just like, ‘This is perfect! How had I never known about it before?’ It totally just came together for me in that class.” Coco has proved to be a quick study, and it was soon clear that she would be dramaturg for the Spring Mainstage. She describes her role in Radium Girls as “ there in the room with Rebecca, (the director), the designers and also stage management to contextualize the play and support Rebecca’s vision for the play, help the actors support her vision through research and other contextualizing material.” Coco, an English major and Theater minor, did not initially know a lot about dramaturgy and its requirements until she took Lisa Jackson-Schebetta’s Production Dramaturgy class, at which point it all clicked: “I think everyone has heard the word ‘dramaturg’ and ‘dramaturgy’ and been like, ‘what the hell does that mean?’ and like, ‘I don’t need to know!’…and everyone has ideas about it, that’s how I totally came into her class. The key party in supporting Rebecca’s vision while keeping the period elements truthful is dramaturg Coco McNeil ’21. There’s a sad relevance to the Radium Girls’ story, which makes telling it in a truthful and thoughtful way vital.

Even now, with the wage gap still alive and well in the workforce, women are more liable to have their health and safety concerns brushed aside.

Gregory’s play Radium Girls, the Spring 2020 Mainstage production directed by Rebecca Marzalek-Kelly, tells the true story of these women particularly that of Grace Fryer, who is ready to go to court to defend herself and her friends and stand up for their rights and health. Radium Corporation to cover their tracks.ĭ.W. It’s only when they began to fall ill with a mysterious disease that radium’s true nature and side effects started to show, forcing the U.S. All thanks to radium, a new miracle cure that made luminous watches all the rage and turned ordinary women into walking phenomena, glowing where they had come into contact with the radium. By day, they may have been dial painters, but by night, they were women of society, brightening the 1920s streets with their distinctive glow. On the outset, the Radium Girls couldn’t seem more glamorous.

Dramaturg Coco McNeil with her board of references.