STERLING — One of America’s most inspirational characters who ever lived is Helen Keller. Her story will be brought to life in Sterling High School Theatre’s production of The Miracle Worker to be presented at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, March 24 and 25 in the school’s theater.
The classic play by William Gibson has been staged twice before at Sterling High School and has been revived on Broadway and remade into several films over its 60+ year history. Sterling High School Theatre director Betsy Dutton first staged the show in 1993. The most recent production in 2010 was helmed by guest director Sasha Hildebrand who is now artistic director for Sterling College Theatre.
The Miracle Worker is set in Alabama in the 1880s and tells the real-life story of Helen Keller, a girl who at a very young age is left blind, deaf and dumb after surviving an attack of scarlet fever. Unable to communicate with the world, the girl suffers fits of frustration which manifests itself in violent tantrums.
The central characters in the play are teacher Anne Sullivan, played by Olivia Kilgore, and her student, blind and mute Helen Keller, played by Kelsey Webb. The Miracle Worker dramatizes the volatile relationship between the lonely teacher and her charge. Trapped in a secret, silent world, unable to communicate, Helen is violent, spoiled, and treated by her family as having little hope for progress. Only Anne realizes that there is a mind and spirit waiting to be rescued from the dark, tortured silence. With scenes of intense physical and emotional dynamism, Anne’s success with Helen finally comes with the utterance of a single, glorious word: “water.”
Keller’s parents will be played by Ella Wellman and Cedric Wilson. Micah Svaty is James, Helen’s teenage half-brother who holds resentment toward her. The headmaster for the Perkins Institute of the Blind will be played by Charlie Simpson-Eighmy. Karissa Wilson plays Aunt Ev, and Mason Lockhart portrays a doctor.
Vinny, a servant in the Keller household, is played Sophia Schneider, with her young children played by Jaiden Jaeger and Leland Britton. Blind children in the cast are portrayed by Isabel Sant, Elise Henry, Kate McGlynn, Kenadee Schmidt, Zoe Harding, Isabella Bates, and Latham Kizzar. Completing the cast will be James McGlynn, Reyna Sanchez, Maddie Fales, and Judah Kuhn.
Tickets for the Sterling High production of The Miracle Worker are $5 for adults and $4 for students will be available at the door before each performance.
