Gorham High School is putting on a performance of “Radium Girls,” a historical drama about several women overcoming big business and creating real change in their industry.

While previous GHS fall plays have been more comedic, director and English teacher at GHS, Josie Tierney-Fife, said, “It felt like a good time to do something that was a little bit more serious, and this show in particular has a really important and inspiring message for our students.”

Issac Martel, one of the actors in the play, stated the play “shows how much we’ve advanced politically and scientifically. I think the play is a testament to how far we’ve come.”

Martel, playing the character Arthur Roeder, said he enjoys the fact that “you get the opportunity to step into someone else shoes. The more we do it, the more involved we get, and it becomes more compelling to not only the audience but the actors.”

Virginia Hugo-Vidal stated that “as an assistant stage manager I tend to spend a lot of time working with actors on their lines. And for me, my favorite thing is once they have their lines down, you can see them start working on their facial expression, and other little body movements. I love seeing that because it brings a whole other level to the show.”

The high school will complete four showings of the performance: two evening shows on November 17 and 18 at 7:30 p.m., and matinee performances on November 18 and 19 at 2 p.m.

Hugo-Vidal believes that this story is important for people to see because it “is a story that a lot of people don’t know about, even though it’s important to American and labor rights history. We owe it to these girls to tell their story and acknowledge what they did and what they went through.”