Big Love

Playwright Melanie Marnich was raised in Duluth and honed her craft in Minneapolis, yet only one of her plays had appeared on a Twin Cities stage.

That has changed with History Theatre's production of "These Shining Lives," which opened Saturday in St. Paul. It is a story about women who painted faces on watches for a Chicago company and became contaminated by radioactive material in the paint. Marnich wrote the piece on commission for Northlight Theatre in Skokie, Ill. That playhouse passed on the script, but Centerstage in Baltimore bit. "These Shining Lives" had its premiere there on April 24.

After a career in advertising, Marnich got the playwriting bug about a dozen years ago. After earning a master of fine arts degree in San Diego, she returned to Minneapolis and taught at the Playwrights' Center and the Loft. Her first work staged in Minneapolis was "Tallgrass Gothic" at the tiny Emigrant Theatre in 2006. Married to playwright Lee Blessing, another Minnesota expatriate, Marnich splits her time between their New York residence and Los Angeles, where she writes for the HBO show "Big Love." She was getting ready to leave her Pasadena, Calif., apartment for work when we spoke with her recently.

Q Where did you hear about the subjects of this play?

A I read a NewYork Times article about a book called "Radium Girls." I looked at that book and snooped around and realized that "Radium Girls" took place in New Jersey, but that there was an almost identical event that took place in Chicago with these women. So I started researching these dial painters in Chicago.

Q How did the St. Paul production come about?

A This play has had the longest gestation period. I think I was talking to Ron [Peluso, artistic director] about it and he asked to read it -- a much earlier draft. And given his theater's mission and what they do, he really connected with it. We both grew up kind of working-class, and he responded to the class elements in it the same way I did.

Q Has that gestation changed it?

A Absolutely. It's been an ongoing class on playwriting for me. I was intimidated by the material because it was based on a true story, because it had such an important but tragic end. But I decided it had to be about dignity and character, not about tragedy. People see "Titanic" and they know it sinks, they know the end, but you look at how the people's characters evolve and interact and triumph. That was a challenge as a writer. I couldn't go, "Oh, I'll use a theatrical trick here." It had to be completely substantial, completely about character. In weaker drafts, I was dressing up the events.

Q Has working on TV affected your writing?

A It's been great. A few months in a TV room and you lose your tolerance for frippery. It's like, "What is story, what is happening? What do these people want?" You gain an appreciation for the muscularity of story, and that was something I was never taught. I was taught to access imagination and magic.

Q Does your husband look at your work?

A Oh, yeah. We read each other's stuff all the time. We can read each other's work and give each other solid dramaturgical and partner support knowing that we occupy different territories. If I were with somebody who was exactly in my kind of theater, it would be difficult. We're different enough that we never infringe on each other's space, careerwise.

Q How was your time in the Twin Cities important?

A When I talk to writers and they ask what they should do, I tell them my time in Minneapolis was imperative. Being a member of the Playwrights' Center and having that as a home base in a chaotic and ephemeral world, I would have gone nuts without that.

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299