The true story of Orange, New Jersey, women sacrificed to the profitable radium business is the subject of Dolores Whiskeyman's Radium Girls, running May 11-28 at the Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey. The company's artistic director Joseph Megel directs.

Whiskeyman's Radium Girls takes place in 1926, when radium was a miracle cure, Marie Curie was a top celebrity and everyone was buying glow-in-the-dark watches -- until the girls painting them began to die. Radium is based on the true story of a group of women who worked for the U.S. Radium Company in Orange, NJ.

Mary Bacon (Broadway's Arcadia, world premiere of Last Night of Ballyhoo) takes the central role of the "radium girl" first to speak out about the dying women. Daren Kelly (Crazy for You, Deathtrap) is Arthur Roeder, the president of U.S. Radium Corporation. Other "radium girls," scientists, Marie Curie, etc. are played by Elizabeth Baron (Maybe, Baby, It's You), Sarah Winkler ("Milk and Money"), T. Cat Ford, Michael Perilstein, Karl Kenzler, Jim Ligon and Jennifer Ginsberg.

Tickets are $18-$16. For reservations, call (973) 514-1787, ext. 30.

The Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey is a professional theatre dedicated to the development of new works and new playwrights. They sponsor the New Jersey Writer's Project, which includes the New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest and Festival, playwriting and acting workshops, Language in Motion and Teaching Teachers summer workshops. The 1999-2000 season is Playwrights' 14th. -- By Christine Ehren