Sariah Grant and James Kennedy (
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When the curtains went up on the Warwick Valley High School Drama Club’s production of “Radium Girls” on Nov. 7, lead actors Sariah Grant and James “Finn” Kennedy were front and center. Grant portrayed Grace Fryer and Kennedy was Arthur Roeder. Both actors have been practicing and performing their craft since they were single digits old, and both are excited to add new roles to their resumes with this year’s fall drama.
Set in the 1920s, “Radium Girls” follows Grace, who is a dial painter at the US Radium Corporation in New Jersey, owned by Arthur. She and her coworkers are instructed to use a technique called “lip-pointing” to paint watch dials with radium-based luminous paint — unknowingly ingesting the radioactive material daily. As the women begin to suffer from mysterious illnesses, Grace fights for justice against a powerful corporation that denies responsibility.
“At the time, people believed that radium was the cure for everything. They believed that it was just, like, holy water,” Grant said. “They thought you could use it to cure cancer, people were drinking it, they were putting it in chocolate. So, these girls who were working in the factory, painting watch dials for the war effort, would put their paintbrushes to their lips to get a point. They were ingesting all this radium.”
The play dramatizes a true story and offers a compelling look into both scientific ethics and labor history. It is considered a powerful resource for high school history and science classes.
“I think something this show is trying to say is, you know, we don’t know everything all the time, and that sometimes people do make mistakes; big mistakes that affect a lot of people,” Kennedy said. “And also that we have to, as a society, learn from the mistakes we make and turn away from them. As a society, but also even just as individuals.”
Grant is new to Warwick Valley Central School District this year. Her family moved upstate from Queens just in time for her junior year. While this is her first year as part of the WVHS Drama Club, she’s been involved in acting for a long time.
“I’ve been acting since third grade. I’m really, really interested in acting as something I’d love to do in the future! I’d like to keep doing theater and just see what other kinds of opportunities I get,” she said, adding that she wanted to get into performing from as far back as she can remember.
Last year she played Betty Paris in “The Crucible.” She has also starred in productions of “SpongeBob the Musical” playing Plankton, and “The Addams Family” playing Wednesday Addams. She said it’s difficult to choose which roles have been her favorites, especially considering how dramatically different they have been.
“Everyone’s been so welcoming,” Grant said of the connections she’s made since arriving in Warwick Valley, being part of Drama Club and the performing arts community. “The thing about drama kids is that they love talking to people. So, you make so many friends and get so many other benefits out of it. It’s so much fun.”
Kennedy has been part of Warwick Valley’s school and community theater scene for most of the past decade. His interest in performing, however, also goes all the way back to elementary school. When he hit middle school, he tapped into his confidence and a commitment to his craft that has kept him auditioning and performing steadily ever since. Well, almost.
“In middle school, I did, I really started to hit the ground running,” he said. “We were going to do “Frozen,” which we never got to do on stage because COVID times hit.”
Kennedy was part of the following year’s WVMS Drama Club production of “SpongeBob” playing Mr. Krabs. A member of the Class of 2026, he has been an active WVHS Drama Club member since his freshman year. He’s played many roles, including Chad in “Goldilocks and the Three Pigs” and Wayne Hopkins in last year’s production of “Puffs.”
“I think that’s one of my favorite shows we’ve done,” Kennedy said. “Wayne is this kid who thinks he’s kind of the chosen one, like Harry Potter, but, of course, he’s not. But then he kind of goes through this process of realizing he is still important. You know? He’s not the chosen one, and that’s okay.”
Grant and Kennedy both go back on forth on whether they prefer plays or musicals. They both say that characters, and the script or book for each show matter, but the fun of the moment often wins out.
Like Grant, Kennedy also aspires to a career in performing. And, with a third of his senior year nearly over already, he is increasingly enthusiastic about how his post-grad plans are coming together.
“ I’ve known for a while now that I want to go to school for acting,” he said. “I already applied to all my schools for acting. Actually, I already found out that I got into my dream school, SCAD – Savannah College of Art and Design. We’ll see what happens, but I’m really hoping to go there.”