Chantilly’s spring main stage production, “Radium Girls,” has received praise from throughout the community, as many flocked to the theater this past weekend to see the show.

“I wanted to see it because I have a lot of friends that are in it, and my sister was in it,” sophomore Moira KIsiday said. “The storyline also seemed very intriguing.”

“Radium Girls” is based on the true story of women in the 1920s and ‘30s who worked in a factory where they used radium in paint to paint the dials of watches. Many of them eventually developed radium poisoning from being in the factory, and also from pointing the tips of their paint brushes with their mouths. This was a time when everyone thought that radium and radioactive materials were safe to use. In this time period, people also thought that items containing radium were very trendy to own, especially since it made things glow in the dark.

The play “Radium Girls” follows the life of Grace Fryer, a young woman who used to work at the radium factory, and got very sick from the radium. The historical aspect of the show has drawn the interest of many students.

“I was really interested in what [the play is] about, because I had never heard of the things [like radium poisoning] that had happened [in the 1920s],” sophomore Noelle Riddle said.

Since this play is not a musical, and since it has a darker and more emotional plot than other plays that Chantilly has done, actors have the chance to really show their skills.

“I liked how well the main character changed throughout the play,” Riddle said. “The actress [showed how her character] got sicker and she did really well executing that.”

Chantilly drama also experimented with a new kind of set for this play, where they used boxes to create the different settings for each scene. This is another thing that the public is interested in seeing when they go to see “Radium Girls.”

“I’ve heard that the set is really cool, that it’s different than any other set they’ve used,” sophomore Sofia Wainwright said. “They can have different settings really easily without changing a lot of things, so I wanna see how that looks.”

If you haven’t seen “Radium Girls” yet, you still have two chances to this week, on Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m.