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MissisMad77
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Grazie per le foto, gli articoli ed i video! Cercherò di mettermi in pari e leggere tutto nel weekend!
Io sinceramente non so cosa pensare x la scelta della scena circolare, cioè mi sembra una scelta magari x un musical o cmq qualcosa in cui gli attori si muovono di più, per un copione simile capisco che il palco circolare possa meglio rappresentare una "intimità" familiare in cui viene coinvolto il pubblico, ma purtroppo la realtà è che secondo me così non si riesce ad apprezzare davvero gli attori, la loro mimica, etc xchè rischi sempre di beccarti la scena in cui ti danno le spalle o ti trovi degli impedimenti davanti, soprattutto se le poltrone non sono rialzate ma a livello del palco!
Io ho visto un solo spettacolo con scena circolare e non l'ho apprezzato moltissimo ed era cmq un balletto quindi non si poneva nemmeno + di tanto il problema delle schiene, forse è solo una questione di abitudine... ma certo se dovessi andare a vederlo il problema "posto" me lo porrei ad esempio!
Edited by MissisMad77 - 4/3/2010, 23:35
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Aleki77 .
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The 411: The Miracle Worker on Broadway
I recently attended a preview for "The Miracle Worker" on Broadway starring Allison Pill, Abigail Breslin, Matthew Modine and Jennifer Morrison, and I'm here to let you know it's a must see production that's ideal for parents of tweens and teens.
Based on the true story of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan, "The Miracle Worker" takes you inside the lives of the Keller family - where you first discover how Helen lost her sight and hearing and watch as her family continually refused to send her to an asylum despite the fact they couldn't control her dangerous outbursts.
At 13 years old, Abigail Breslin is brilliant in her role as Helen. Without uttering a word, Breslin is incredibly believable as a blind and deaf "wild child" who is desperately trying to connect with those around her. Allison Pill is awe inspiring in her role as Annie Sullivan. Pill is a true spitfire in this show - combining tenacity, humor and empathy as she guides Helen to a major breakthrough. Feature film star Matthew Modine makes his Broadway debut in "The Miracle Worker" and breathes humor and compassion into the role of Helen's father, Captain Keller. And mothers will instantly connect with Jennifer Morrison, who portrays Helen's mom Kate Keller, who never gave up on her daughter, despite the painful effects Helen's condition had on her family.
I recently spoke with one of the show's producers, Lynn Shaw, who joined me as a guest on Blog Talk Radio where she shared the inside story of how the current stage version of "The Miracle Worker" came to fruition. Plus, Lynn reveals some amazing behind the scenes stories from the show's rehearsals and tells us how she got her start as a theatrical producer. Listen in and enjoy!
If you're interested in taking your family to see The Miracle Worker on Broadway, visit the show's website today for show times and tickets. Plus, if you happen to attend a Tuesday evening show during the month of March, you'll get the chance to participate in "Talk Back Tuesdays" where the cast answers questions from audience members. Fans will be thrilled to know that Abigail Breslin poses for photos and signs autographs for those audience members who stick around to meet her after the show. Hope you get to see it and enjoy the show as much as I did!
c'è una clip audio che però non riesco a sentire!: www.rolemommy.com/blog/role-mommy-411-the-miracle-wor.php
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
The Miracle Worker
In a cruelly ironic jab to Circle in the Square's theater-in-the-round production of The Miracle Worker, many of the audience members will, at one point or another, be entirely blind to what's happening on stage. Thankfully, William Gibson's script--which has aged surprisingly well--is far from deafening, and is neatly delivered by a talented cast.
The tear-jerking plot, as you've surely seen (or seen parodied) before, is based on the true story of the attempts of twenty-year-old Annie Sullivan (Alison Pill) to teach the blind and deaf Helen Keller (Abigail Breslin) to understand words. Along the way, she must deal with Keller's coddling mother (Jennifer Morrison), strict yet spoiling father (Matthew Modine), as well as with her own youth and inexperience. Of these four main characters, Morrison has the least the work with; that she still finds a way to show a heartfelt resolve beneath those manners is a sign of how well Kate Whoriskey works with her actors. (In other words, anyone would struggle to stage The Miracle Worker in the round: a play built around still, quiet, and tentative moments has few opportunities to cheat out.)
In any case, The Miracle Worker leaves little room for directorial "meddling," and the production is very smoothly and straightforwardly done, so as to leave the emphasis on the story itself. Derek McLane's set slides up as easily from the floor as it glides down from the sky, and Kenneth Posner's lighting neatly focuses the action during Sullivan's nightmares of childhood (even when her back is to the audience). It's all so functional, in fact, that we forget the old-timey bits (the social status of the 1880s) and focus entirely on the bravura performances from Breslin and Pill.
It's no surprise to find Pill entirely capable of playing this strong woman--her rigorous convictions were cemented in The Lieutenant of Inishmore, her determination in Mauritus, and her fiery doubts in Reasons To Be Pretty: she's been engineered to crisply say things like, "You think I'm so easily gotten rid of? I have nothing else to do." Her steeliness is abetted by those killer shades of her (the ones for her own ocular conditions): "The room's a wreck, but her napkin is folded," she says, staring down an increasingly flustered Modine. It's a delight to find her matched by Breslin, who has the near-impossible role of playing a wild child without sinking to cheap melodrama. Though she has no vocabulary, she is filled with an expressive language, a wide range of frustrated emotions. When she fights with Sullivan, unwilling to use a spoon, there is a moment when she realizes how useful the spoon can be--her face lights up--and then quickly hides that, and, rebelliously determined not to give in, she flings it to the ground again. These action-packed moments bring out the best of the cast and the director, even if the nuance is unfortunately always lost on a quarter of the audience.
The real miracle of The Miracle Worker is that, despite being entirely predictable, it is still filled with the desperate hopes that make for engaging drama. Though many of the scenes between Keller and Sullivan are based on the same spelled-out repetitions ("It has a name"), neither actress is at a loss for finding new tactics or deeper motivations. When Sullivan pushes to take Keller away from her family and the crippling nature of pity, Captain Keller rebukes her: "This is hardly a war." But Sullivan (and Whoriskey) know better: "Well, it's not love. A siege is a siege." By keeping such high stakes and refusing to indulge in platitudes, the production remains dramatically sound, even when the staging slips.
http://thatsoundscool.blogspot.com/2010/03...cle-worker.html
Emotions left untapped in 'The Miracle Worker'
Joe Dziemianowicz
Read more: www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/m...l#ixzz0hExCfWzM
As Annie Sullivan strives to break through to a young Helen Keller, she intently and repeatedly finger-spells words into the blind and deaf girl’s hand, like d-o-l-l.
If you’ve seen “The Miracle Worker” on stage or the Oscar-winning 1962 film adaptation with Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke, who originated the roles of teacher and pupil on stage, you expect heart-stirring urgency from those fast-moving fingers.
But Broadway’s first revival of William Gibson?a>??s 1959 biodrama seldom summons high stakes or deep feelings. It’s a respectable production, but it’s often wan. Occasionally it’s d-u-l-l.
The play covers a brief period in the late 1880s running up to Helen?a>??s life-altering awakening to language. The story is familiar. The storytelling straightforward. The impact hinges on the performances to make it special.
As the 9-year-old girl incorrectly regarded as a mentally handicapped wild child, “Little Miss Sunshine” Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin is committed and competent but unmemorable.
Alison Pill plays Annie, a 20-year-old instructor with her own heavy baggage, including poor sight and a horrific youth spent in an asylum. On stage in “Reasons to Be Pretty” and “The Lieutenant of Inishmore,” which earned her a Tony nod, Pill showed how commanding and gritty she can be. She needs more of each here.
Though the initial encounter meeting between Helen and Annie fires wonderful sparks, their subsequent battle of wills isn’t as vigorous or as volatile as it should be. Director Kate Whoriskey, who brought so much shading to the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Ruined,” hasn’t done the same for “Miracle.”
Supporting actors register one emotion apiece — angry indignation from Helen’s father (Matthew Modine), ineffectual sweetness from her mother (Jennifer Morrison), shrill exasperation from both her half-brother (Tobias Segal) and aunt (Elizabeth Franz).
The evening’s most stirring acting comes from mini-miracle Lance Chantiles-Wertz, whose scenes as Annie’s ghostly little brother are spookily haunting.
While highs and lows are largely lacking in the emotions department, the set provides ups and downs. Furniture above the stenciled stage is constantly being lowered and raised as needed for the show, which is performed in the round, with the audience surrounding the action.
As such, there inevitably are scenes when you’ll be eyeballing backs. A few eclipsed exchanges isn’t a big problem. But a tearjerker that leaves you dry in the eyes — now that’s an issue.
Circle in the Square Theatre
235 W. 50th St., Tickets: $117
(212) 239-6200
[email protected]
Read more: www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/m...l#ixzz0hEx1tfeU
By Isa Goldberg
For the Times Herald-Record
Posted: March 04, 2010 - 2:00 AM
The 50th anniversary of "The Miracle Worker" as revived at Circle in the Square rests in the small hands of a child, the Oscar-nominated Abigail Breslin ("Little Miss Sunshine"). With Alison Pill as Helen Keller's teenage mentor Annie Sullivan, the two create resounding chemistry.
That Alison Pill is especially delightful to see will come as no surprise to New York audiences. As the saucy Irish immigrant in Confederate Capt. Keller's post-bellum household, she registers a passionate, rebellious spirit that is couched in sardonic humor. With the fringe of a Boston accent still audible after years in an orphanage (the kind Dickens described), Sullivan brings audacity and hope to a household under siege. Spoon-fed and angry, Helen flings food, punches and stabs until she takes the house down with pity.
Matthew Modine brings a crisp, abrupt energy to Capt. Keller, and Jennifer Morrison as his wife and mother of three captures that ideal of beauty. Family dysfunction is never overlooked by Helen's older stepbrother, James (Tobias Segal), who rankles for attention. And as the caring, wise Aunt Ev, Elizabeth Franz is an understated, albeit forceful, presence.
Kate Whoriskey's production, staged in the round for the first time on Broadway, throws up a natural handicap to anyone who wants to watch it all fully. At any given moment some of the physical action has to be played with the actors' backs to part of the audience. Under the circumstances, spoken words get muffled. Still, thrusting a little discomfort our way serves the story well.
More importantly, Whoriskey rescues the play from the excessive slapping and "water boarding" techniques employed in the 1962 movie that was based on the original Broadway production. Some of those behaviors would appear unacceptable by contemporary standards. Besides, the diminutive Alison Pill sustains ample physicality without Anne Bancroft's quarterbacking.
Still, William Gibson's play is less than intriguing drama. As it unfolds with one-dimensional linearity, not much is left to our imagination save Helen Keller's remarkable accomplishments. The Radcliffe grad, suffragette, diplomat, author, friend to presidents and ambassador for the American Foundation for the Blind is not depicted here. Rather, we witness the daunting journey to Helen's humanization and education. Learning to spell by cuffing her hands into Annie's, she becomes capable of recognizing the physical world: the ability to identify objects by naming them.
Regardless of the inspirational outcome, the tiresome repetition of these frustrating exercises can be boring to watch if you're not a child yourself. Clearly, it is better material for children, and there were many in attendance the night I went to the show.
There is an overall adeptness to the production, however, that sustains it. Fortunately, the acting is not overly emotional, nor the presentation far too graphic. Morbidity is left out, save for Annie Sullivan's recollections of her tuberculosis-ridden brother (Lance Chantiles-Wertz) — a passion play of its own.
Derek McLane's setting with the furniture hanging from the ceiling when we come into the theater allows us to see the Keller home before the physical world has arrived. While it's upper-class and well appointed, the cosmos becomes chaos when Helen enters. Even if the arduous education of Helen Keller isn't fascinating drama every step of the way, its triumph is something to savor.
Abigail Breslin as Helen Keller and Alison Pill as Annie Sullivan create strong chemistry in "The Miracle Worker."
Photo by Joan Marcus
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/...TERTAIN/3040302. -
aurore .
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thanks for the photos and the videos !!
the reviews are not really good
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Aleki77 .
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Il red carpet degli ospiti all'Opening Night di the miracle worker
www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0C5BWahWTk
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Aleki77 .
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PLAYBILL ON OPENING NIGHT: The Miracle Worker — A Pill for Enlightenment
By Harry Haun
04 Mar 2010
Meet the first-nighters of the new Broadway production of The Miracle Worker.
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On March 3, 1887, the blind-deaf-and-mute Helen Keller met Annie Sullivan, the teacher who would take her out of the isolated ignorance and tactile tyranny in which she lived. That life-altering event — which led to the unlocking of one of the great minds of the 20th century — was marked 123 years later, to the day, with a Circle in the Square revival of the play that dramatizes this encounter: William Gibson's stirring, soul-swelling, Tony-winning drama, The Miracle Worker. The transforming power of human thought is so rarely celebrated in theatre that the few plays that do that are usually touched with greatness. Pygmalion/My Fair Lady and Inherit the Wind come readily to mind. The Miracle Worker is probably the most primal exponent of this, involving as it does a ferociously physical interplay between a teacher and her willfully unwilling pupil.
As Gibson depicts it, this takes the form of two fierce, full-out dinner-table donnybrooks in which the teacher finally badgers her stubborn student into submission and civility. "The room is a wreck," Annie announces at the end of Round One, "but her napkin is folded." A lot of unlearning lies ahead of her, given the years Helen ruled the Keller roost like a wild child, pampered by her permissive parents.
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It was producer David Richenthal's bright idea to recast "Little Miss Sunshine" as "Little Miss Darkness," flailing her way into the light, pitting Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin against Tony nominee Alison Pill.
Reinforcing this "Friday Night Fights" concept, director Kate Whoriskey has staged the match — er, play — in the round like a boxing ring, so God save the front-row patrons from all the flying biscuits. One has already been struck by a flying biscuit, but it crumbled on impact (the biscuit, not the patron) so no lawsuit.
This new "lay of the land" presented a particular challenge to Tony-winning designer Derek McLane, who specializes in bookshelves and tchotchkes (33 Variations, I Am My Own Wife, et al). He resolved it imaginatively with flying scenery: Desks and doorways and beds and tables descend from, and ascend into, a lace-doily wrap-around covering the lighting-rig above the stage. The only prop left standing throughout the show is the front-yard pump, which, when it has to, dispenses real, barrier-breaking wawa at the right crucial moment at the end.
The evening's honored guest, introduced by Richenthal before the play began, was 87-year-old director Arthur Penn, whose 1959 Miracle won a Tony for himself and for the play and who refereed the Oscar-winning tag-team match of Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke on stage and screen. Even before this, he did the same for Teresa Wright and The Bad Seed's Patty McCormack in a "Playhouse 90" presentation on TV.
"It's a very touching play," he admitted at intermission, visibly glassy-eyed from the memories the evening was evoking. No, he didn't detect any telltale signs of a classic-in-the-hatching at first reading. "I knew I could get some money for Bill — that's all I knew." As one of the major movers in the Golden Age of Television, he thought Gibson's teleplay could cut muster as a teleplay, "but the success of it surprised us. On television in those days — this was the beginning of 'Playhouse 90' — the audience response was unknown. When it aired — directly, no tape, tape didn't exist — the telephones at CBS lit up. That's when we knew we had something.
"The reaction of the audience was very big, but people in the business — not so. When we had the play ready to come to Broadway, the Shuberts wouldn't give us a theatre. We had a play about a deaf blind kid, and they just weren't interested. So we got the old Playhouse — an independent theatre on West 48th that no longer exists."
Penn cashed in his chips when the curtain fell, and he didn't fall in with the madding crowd trudging to the after-party site, Crimson, at Broadway and 21st. Once there, first-nighters were shoehorned into the club's cramped quarters.
Poised with cameras and tape recorders, the press was packed into an alcove near the entranceway to get first dibs on the arriving players — a small pocket of chaos.
Little Miss Breslin led the big parade of players making their Broadway debuts — among them , actors playing her parents (Matthew Modine and Jennifer Morrison) and stepbrother (Tobias Segal) — and, with uncommon confidence, untouched by fatigue, she showed them how to breeze through the press gauntlet with the greatest of ease and not seem like a 13-year-old at all.
"I'm so honored to play Helen because she's such an inspiring person," she trilled. It's a performance six years in the making, if you start counting from her first spark of interest. "The first thing I read about her was a kid's biography when I was seven, and, ever since then, I've wanted to play her," the actress said. "I just read her autobiography when we were in rehearsal. One of the things I thought was so great about her is that, even though she is so violent in the show, she was so like a little girl with little-girl thoughts, like teaching her doll the sign language she learned."
Connecting the sign language to meaning is where the physical stuff came in. "Yeah, we had tons of choreography, and we had weeks of training. At first, the big fight scene ran 10 or 15 minutes, but we changed it. I'd say now it's about five minutes."
But doesn't the rigors of all that tucker even a teenager? "Yeah," Breslin grudgingly allowed herself in a chipper, sing-songy fashion. "I'm a little tired, but I'm okay."
Her opponent and co-star (who has 11 years on her) didn't bother to put a happy face on the hard work. "It is exhausting. I'm exhausted right now," Pill admitted with a laugh that spoke the truth. "We had a fight choreographer as well as a movement coach named Lee Sher who helped us with a lot of it as well."
Fighting is only half the challenge — but the first half: "It's the stamina — just to be physically capable of lasting for that long in a battle on stage. And the next is just finding the truth in the moments between Abby and me and making sure that there is intimacy between us. She is a wonderful kid, and we're having a great time."
But neither one of them are sustaining the relationship without bruises, she said.
Morrison, who plays Helen's doting and indulgent mother, comes to the role from film and from FOX TV's "House M.D." "I've always loved being on stage," she confessed. "I've really missed it, and I feel the last couple of months have been a chance for me to re-find those muscles and to really stretch and grow as an actor.
"This is a character that I don't necessarily personally agree with a lot, and that was partly why it was so appealing to me — to take on a character that is so different from myself that I have to do a lot of work to believe in what she believes in.
"Personally, I would sympathize with Annie Sullivan if I was just watching this show. I had to find a way to absolutely 100 percent understand where Kate Keller was coming from in every moment, so the audience understood why she was saying what she was saying and doing what she was doing. I had to believe it as much as she believed it. The challenge of that really helped me to grow as an actor and as a person."
Modine plays her hard-nosed husband with a molasses-thick Alabama accent, the one he perfected last year as Atticus Finch in Hartford Stage's To Kill a Mockingbird. He paused a beat in doubt and, double-checking, yelled out to the nearby Michael Wilson: "Aren't we in Alabama in Mockingbird?" Shot back director Wilson: "Yeah. You can only do plays that are in Alabama."
"Michael and I were hoping to bring Mockingbird to Broadway this year, but we need a little massaging of Harper Lee to get her to allow us to do that," Modine said. "But what we may do — when I finish up The Miracle Worker — is go down and do it in Washington, DC. because there's something extraordinary about the opportunity of doing that play in DC with this administration at this time in our country's history. That'd probably be sometime this fall at a theatre down there.
"The Miracle Worker is an earlier period than Mockingbird. This is post-Civil War. Captain Keller would have been Atticus' father. People who know this play remember the Captain as a one-dimensional, angry father. What I love about it is having the opportunity to flesh him out because the opportunity is there to make him three-dimensional — a father who loves his children and who is, in many ways, as blind as his daughter. Over the course of the play, he is able to hear things that he wasn't able to at the start of the play. It's a wonderful role."
Modine is amazed to be just now getting around to his Broadway bow. "I've lived here for 30 years, and I've had opportunities to work on Broadway, but things like Robert Altman or Stanley Kubrick or Alan Pakula — those people would get in my way and offer me movies — but now, unfortunately, they're all gone. And here I am."
Segal hasn't gotten around to Broadway because he has been too busy getting around the world — on the first world tour of The Bridge Project organized by Sam Mendes. "That was really wonderful. I had never been out of the states before."
He has already noticed a discernible difference in Broadway audiences. "It does feel different in the sense that the audiences that are coming to see the show — the support that's there is a little different than what you get in a smaller place."
Stage veteran Elizabeth Franz has the smallish role of the elderly aunt, but she's the picture of period-piece perfection whenever she weighs into a scene in her bustled outfit. "You know how much that weighs?" she asked. "Fifteen pounds! And we don't have elevators. We have to go up and down the stairs in that, but I love it."
What was her attraction to the role? Director Whoriskey. "I worked with her two years ago in The Piano Teacher Off-Broadway. We got the Lortel and the Obie and all that — and we almost went into an open-ended run. We may do that yet.
"Kate begged me to come and work on this because she said, 'I need your eye. You've been around so long, and I just want to see what I'm not getting across in rehearsal.' I would say, 'Well, maybe we can go this way,' and she'd say, 'Can I use your words?' I said, 'Sure. You can use any word of mine.' It's been wonderful working with her."
Whoriskey is another Broadway newcomer (but the only one with a Pulitzer Prize play under her belt: Lynn Nottage's Ruined of last year). Now, with a Broadway debut checked off, she's bound for Paris to do an opera and then Seattle to become artistic director of the Intiman Theatre there. "But I'm not deserting Broadway," she hastened to add. "Hopefully, I'll stay a member of this community."
Her husband, Daniel Breaker, a Tony contender last year as Shrek's Donkey, has been keeping the home fires burning while the Mrs. is off directing.
"I'm up to being a father right now" is what's he's up to, Breaker said. "Our son just turned 18 months today. Kate was doing the show, and I was being a dad."
The evening's best overheard-in-passing line? "Only if you're Sicilian is that important" — from Brian Dennehy, who was there for one of his former stage wives, Elizabeth Franz (they won Tonys together for the 1999 Death of a Salesman). Dennehy's promised Broadway return — a transfer from Chicago's Goodman of O'Neill/Beckett's Hughie/Krapp's Last Tape — has derailed, he said.
Other first-nighters included Mario Cantone with his sister; Josh Lucas; "Sopranos" stars Dominic Chianese and Edie Falco; Fox-5's Rosanna Scotto; designer Isabel Toledo; Bill Sage; I Am My Own WifeTony winner Jefferson Mays with his wife; Equus/Amadeus author Sir Peter Shaffer; Kathleen Turner; Finian's Rainbow's Kate Baldwin, Christopher Fitzgerald and Jim Norton, Debra Monk (who, with an arsenal of showstoppers that Kander & Ebb specifically wrote for her, is personally sitting pretty for their Vineyard Theatre salute March 8); Robert Creighton; Sutton Foster, and, separately, her pug-nosed bro Hunter Foster (bracing for Broadway's Million Dollar Quartet — as the narrating but non-singing Sun Records mogul Sam Phillips); Sarah Paulson with Amanda Peet; Dee Hoty; and Blaine Trump with "Wonder Woman" herself; Lynda Carter.
http://www.playbill.com/features/article/1...lightenment/all
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Aleki77 .
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thanks Vitto and Mad
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Aleki77 .
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Exclusive HHHQs 
credits: Aleki77. -
Aleki77 .
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CITAZIONETogether, along with a beautifully calibrated cast -- former House star Jennifer Morrison as Mrs. Keller, Matthew Modine as Captain Keller, Elizabeth Franz as Aunt Ev and Tobias Segal as James, Helen's half-brother -- The Miracle Worker, an inspiring production, introduces a new generation to a remarkable story.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fern-siegel/...w_b_485114.html. -
Aleki77 .
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more one
www.buzznet.com/. -
mvitto .
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grazie Aleki!!! quante foto nuove!!! . -
MissisMad77 .
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molto "materna"!
Ale!
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mvitto .
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Producer Richenthal Says Miracle Worker Will Continue on Broadway
By Andrew Gans
and Kenneth Jones
05 Mar 2010
Although box-office figures haven't skyrocketed since the first-ever Broadway revival of The Miracle Worker officially opened March 3, the show will continue playing Circle in the Square Theatre.
In a March 5 statement producer David Richenthal said, "While we are very proud to have received such positive reviews, and overwhelmingly unanimous praise for our leading ladies Abigail Breslin and Alison Pill, the box office has not ignited as we had hoped. But we will continue in good faith with a call to arms for anyone who has been waiting to see it to act now. I’ve never seen families and young children react to a play the way we’ve witnessed at Circle in the Square. It is our hope that momentum will build so we may continue to share this powerful story of the resilience of the human spirit with a new generation of theatergoers. If we don’t witness a significant increase in the box office over the weekend we will need to take a close look at our ability to keep the production open."
Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin stars as Helen Keller in the true story that has inspired generations. Breslin ("Little Miss Sunshine") plays the angry and chaotic Helen, the blind and deaf Alabama girl who cannot be controlled by her Victorian parents. Enter 20-year-old Annie Sullivan, played by the doll-eyed Tony Award nominee Alison Pill (Lieutenant of Inishmore), the brash Boston teacher who does battle with Helen and brings forth a transformation that helped make Keller an international symbol of overcoming adversity.
Kate Whoriskey (who shepherded Lynn Nottage's Fabulation and Ruined regionally and Off-Broadway) directs the 50th anniversary production. On three different levels on the oval stage of Circle in the Square — Broadway's only in-the-round venue — Annie and Helen violently wrestle in an effort to bring language to the girl's dark world. (Sometimes furniture gets in the way of their feuds, and sometimes not — Whoriskey suspends set pieces from cables and raises and lowers them as needed.)
Annie also fights with the Kellers, who have treated Helen as a kind of "pet." The teacher seeks to break through to the girl by separating her from her overly protective parents and connecting hand signals to objects and people around her.
Set in Alabama in the 1880s, The Miracle Worker, according to production notes, "tells the story of real-life blind and deaf Medal of Freedom winner Helen Keller, who suddenly lost her sight and hearing at the age of 19 months, and the extraordinary teacher who taught her to communicate with the world, Annie Sullivan."
The new Broadway cast of The Miracle Worker also includes Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominee Matthew Modine ("And the Band Played On," "Short Cuts," "Birdy," Hartford Stage's To Kill a Mockingbird) as Capt. Keller; Jennifer Morrison (Fox TV's "House M.D.") as Mrs. Keller; and Tony Award winner Elizabeth Franz (Broadway's Death of a Salesman, Morning's at Seven) as Aunt Ev, with Tobias Segal (The Cherry Orchard at BAM) as Helen's half-brother James, Daniel Oreskes (Billy Elliot) as an Alabama Doctor and Annie's mentor Dr. Anagnos, Michael Cummings (Joe Turner's Come and Gone) as Percy, Simone Joy Jones as Martha, Yvette Ganier (Gem of the Ocean) as Viney and Lance Chantiles-Wertz (The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd) as the ghost of Annie's brother, Jimmie.
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The original 1959 Broadway production famously starred Anne Bancroft as Irish-American Annie and young Patty Duke as Helen. It won six Tony Awards, including Best Play in 1960. They repeated their work for the film version, each winning an Academy Award. Duke later played Annie in a TV film of the work, with Melissa Gilbert as Helen. A theatrical sequel, Monday After the Miracle, also by Gibson, showed Helen and Annie as adults, dealing with very different issues. Gibson died in 2008.
Breslin is most widely known for playing the title role in the film "Little Miss Sunshine," for which she got an Academy Award nomination.
Pill was Tony-nominated for playing a lovestruck Irish terrorist in the dark comedy The Lieutenant of Inishmore.
The producers previously announced that ten-year-old actress Kyra Ynez Siegel, who has vision loss in one of her eyes, has been cast as the understudy to Breslin in the role of Helen.
The Miracle Worker is produced by David Richenthal, Eric Falkenstein, Randall L. Wreghitt, Barbara & Buddy Freitag/Dan Frishwasser, Joseph J. Grano, Jr., Mallory Factor, Cheryl Lachowicz, Martha Falkenberg, Bruce J. Carusi & Susan Altamore Carusi, Lynn Shaw, David & Sheila Lehrer; in association with Connie Bartlow Kristan, Jamie deRoy/Remmel T. Dickinson and associate producers Rosalind Productions, Inc. and Patty Baker/Anna Czekaj.
The creative team includes scenic designer Derek McLane, costume designer Paul Tazewell, lighting designer Kenneth Posner and hair designer Charles LaPointe. Physical coaching and movement is by Lee Sher. Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen handle original music and sound designer.
Tickets to The Miracle Worker are $117 (including $2 facility charge) and are available by calling Telecharge at (212) 239-6200, visiting www.telecharge.com or visiting Circle in the Square Theatre box office at 235 West 50 Street.
The Miracle Worker will play the following schedule. Week of March 1: Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday at 8 PM; Sunday evening at 7 PM; opening night curtain March 3 at 6:30 PM; no performance March 4; Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 PM.
Beginning week of March 8: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 7 PM; Friday and Saturday at 8 PM; Wednesday and Saturday matinees at 2 PM; Sunday matinees at 3 PM. Dark Monday.
Visit MiracleWorkeronBroadway.
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The Miracle Worker is the first Broadway play to offer the D-Scriptive audio system for audience members who are blind or have low vision, as well as the I-Caption system for audience members who are deaf or hard of hearing, both free of charge at every performance.
The show's official website is another Broadway first: it ensures access for all patrons with disabilities.
"Care has been taken to ensure proper contrast in color palettes and choice of typeface to aid users with low vision, and the site functions properly when the design 'style sheets' are deactivated," according to the producers. "This increases usability for patrons who prefer to omit the embedded styling altogether or, alternatively, to use personalized style sheets during their visit."
Expect "closed captioning for YouTube-hosted videos created by the production," with "onscreen transcripts provided for users without Flash or javascript support." The website highlights the accessibility products that are provided to patrons free of charge at The Circle in the Square. Visit the Accessibility Services page at miracleworkeronbroadway.com.
The production is committed to continually improving the website's accessibility based on feedback from users and partners in the Blind and Deaf communities.
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/13758...nue-on-Broadway. -
MissisMad77 .
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BWW TV: Broadway Beat Sneak Peek of THE MIRACLE WORKER Opening Night(TV Content)
The 50th Anniversary production and first Broadway revival of William Gibson's Tony Award® winning play THE MIRACLE WORKER, directed by Kate Whoriskey (Ruined), opened last night, Wednesday, March 3rd at Circle in the Square Theatre. BroadwayWorld brings you a sneak peek of Broadway Beat's Opening Night Coverage!
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mvitto .
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thank you Mad
sembra più splendente qui che nelle foto e son felice di quanto racconta!. -
Aleki77 .
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Jennifer Morrison on the stage - The miracle worker
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2010 - THEATRE - The miracle worker |
