The Miracle Worker Revival Comes to Broadway
We know The Miracle Worker is a wonderful play about Helen Keller. We’ve come a long way since the 1962 movie starring Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke. Deaf actors have landed more roles even several were the stars of their own shows. (Marlee Matlin starred Reasonable Doubts in and Deanna Bray in Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye.)
So, Broadway is welcoming a revival of The Miracle Worker. Who did the producers tap to play Helen Keller? Don’t bother trying to recall every teen actor who is deaf, blind or both. Instead, they went with Abigail Breslin of Little Miss Sunshine.
Can you guess what happened? You betcha. Advocacy groups like the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts share their disgust for the casting with the show’s producers. Oh, but they’re open to casting a deaf or blind actor as an understudy. You can see the scores of news articles on Google.
Disappointing indeed.
