The story of how Helen Keller learned to communicate was first brought to the stage in 1959, with the Broadway premiere of William Gibson’s play “The Miracle Worker.”
Nearly 60 years later, the play’s lessons of perseverance and acceptance still strike a powerful chord with many, including the Mineola High School students who will perform it this weekend, said Matthew DeLuca, the show’s director.
“It truly was a miracle that a woman was able to reach through to someone who has no form of communication, shut off entirely, and through patience and perseverance push through,” said DeLuca, a fifth-grade teacher at Mineola Middle School.
The cast of 15 student actors and 30 backstage crew members, all members of the school’s Drama Club, has been rehearsing the play since September.
It depicts the first month of Keller’s education under Annie Sullivan, a teacher who was herself blind and taught Keller to communicate through hand signals.
She eventually became a famed lecturer and author of an autobiography, on which “The Miracle Worker” is based. She is also the namesake for Port Washington’s Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths & Adults.
DeLuca chose “The Miracle Worker,” a drama, as the club’s fall play after doing comedies the past two years, he said. Eighth-grade students are reading the script in their English classes and will get to see it performed this weekend, he said.
The opportunity to play real historical figures has proven a “rich and rewarding” experience for the student actors, DeLuca said.
“There’s so much subtext below the text, so they really loved digging into that and coming up with a full life to tell these people’s stories before they walked on stage,” he said. “So they felt like they had a duty to do right by these people.”
Bridget Healey, a Mineola ninth-grader who plays Keller, said she rehearsed with a blindfold on to get a sense of what blindness is like.
Katrine Gulinao, an 11th-grader who plays Sullivan, said she found an “extremely complex role” when she researched Sullivan’s life story and learned how the obstacles she overcame influenced the rest of her life.
“In some ways I relate to her darkness and I connected it to, pretty much, the hardships in my life,” Gulinao said.
The story goes beyond Keller’s disability and shows how she “completely changed the rule” about perceptions of disabled people as incapable or passive, Healey said.
“She really did prove to everyone, ‘You can do this. Even though I’m blind and deaf, I can still do what I need to do,’” Healey said.
The production will open about 10 days after a contentious U.S. presidential election in which Republican Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. In that time, several attacks in Trump’s name on ethnic and religious minorities have been documented.
Given the timing of the show, DeLuca said it shows the importance of acceptance, love and understanding for those who are different.
“Without acceptance and love, Helen would never have been reached,” he said.
Auditions will start in about three weeks for Mineola’s spring production of “Seussical,” a musical based on the works of Dr. Seuss, DeLuca said.
“The Miracle Worker” will be performed Friday, Nov. 18, at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, Nov. 19, at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium at Mineola High School, located at 10 Armstrong Road in Garden City Park.
