Kate Keller: Is it possible, even, to teach a deaf blind child half of what an ordinary child learns? Has it ever been done?
Annie Sullivan: No.
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Matthew Modine: I was flabbergasted by how I didn’t know the material when I read the play. Because, while it’s still very much a story about a teacher and a student, it’s much more a story about a family dealing with a crisis in the house.
Jennifer Morrison: Upon re-reading it, I just realized how complicated all the relationships in the story were, and how beautifully developed all the characters were. It’s not one of those stories where the two main characters are developed and everybody else is just there to help. Every single character has real depth.
Alison Pill: This story is well known, but the details have been kind of fudged around the edges. It’s a really incredible thing that they did, and to not take for granted that any of it was possible.
Kate Whoriskey: We’ve been doing two hours of physical training with Abigail and Alison every day, so that they can, particularly Abigail, get a sense of how to communicate if the body is all she has, and what she’s been finding is really extraordinary.
Abigail Breslin: The difference between doing film and doing Broadway, is obviously, in film you can get as many takes as you need. In this you don’t. You get one take every night, that’s it.
Matthew Modine: The miracle in this play comes when Annie Sullivan finds a way to communicate through letters in Helen Keller’s hand. There was no way they were going to make Helen see again or hear again, but they made Helen to see and hear in a different way, so it’s a story about communication. That’s a very contemporary story.
Elizabeth Franz: You’re going to go out very “hope-filled,” and you’re going to see that obstacles in life can be overcome. You have to fight; you have to fight for life.
Jennifer Morrison: People in general, based on the circumstances in the country right now, at this very moment are going to really relate to what this family is going through, and find hope. This family is ultimately able to get through the adversity, and is able to come together to find a solution for them to move forward.
Abigail Breslin: We really just go through a lot of emotions in this play, and I really just think that it has a million different “colors” to it.
Kate Whoriskey: If you’re willing to go with us through the journey of it, you’ll actually have something at the end. I think the story is triumphant.
Alison Pill: It’s an inspiring and incredible story. There’s not going to be another chance to see this cast in the round, as close as we are. It’s a Broadway house, but it’s tiny, and so much of what we get to do is so near and so raw. I think it’s going to be a really exciting night at the theatre. You will walk out of it changed.
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Jennifer Morrison: This is the very, very first day. We’re all meeting each other for the first time, so we’re sort of getting to know each a little bit. Everybody’s excited to be here; everybody’s excited to meet each other.
Matthew Modine: Look at all the people required to create a production for a Broadway play. It’s extraordinary, isn’t it?
Alison Pill: We just had our Equity Union meeting, we’re “meeting and greeting” our creative team and seeing what the final product is envisioned to be. It’s a very exciting day.
Kate Whoriskey: As an audience member, you’ll be able to see both the action and other audience members, so there’s a real intimacy. There’s kind of a pulse, when everything’s really alive that we can all participate in and the whole room becomes engaged in the story.
Jennifer Morrison: It’s a story that’s really moving and, I think, still relevant today. I’m excited to see how audiences respond to it when we open.
Abigail Breslin: I’ve never done Broadway before, so to get to do it and play one of my heroes is really exciting. But I’m just nervous, you know, and need to get everything down by the time we have to open.
Alison Pill: It feels incredible and terrifying. I can’t wait to really begin to get to the heart of it.
Kate Whoriskey: When I read it, I was overwhelmed by the meaning of it. And I felt like there was something wonderful about a family who was willing to galvanize to do anything to get this child to learn how to speak.
Elizabeth Franz: You’re going to have to think about what it’s like to be that child, and also about Annie and what she survived.
Matthew Modine: You see how important it is not to lose faith and to continue to have courage in life.
Abigail Breslin: She never gave up on herself and nobody ever gave up on her. I think that’s really an important lesson.
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John Dugdale: When I lost my sight almost entirely about 17 years ago, I needed to reinvent myself from being a commercial photographer to an art photographer.
I remembered from when I was in college that there was a beautiful, simple, inexpensive process called cyanotype, so I though I would make a few just to get started again doing something.
And it turned out that the blue color really deeply affected people, so I went on to have about 175 shows around the world over the next twenty years.
The camera is an extraordinarily beautiful, Dierdorf camera from somewhere between 1900 and 1905. As my sight faded it was wonderful because is has an 11x14 back, and I could see something through there. As it diminished more to where I am now Daniel, who is here, would just direct my hands over the screen.
We’ve worked together for so long that basically all I have to do is speak out loud with the slightest direction and he makes the photographs with me in a way that I feel that I’m making them myself.
Since this was set originally in 1880-85 it seemed really appropriate, the process and the camera, and the fact that I more than know what it feels like to be unsighted.
I was actually even deaf for a while. I had a stroke that precipitated my illness from HIV. I was deaf for one day, completely in both ears, and my sight went away very quickly, so I have a special feeling.
It’s a marvelous thing to make photographs with this camera, because it’s more like sitting for a still life or a water color.
There’s no jumping around, the camera one has a speed of 1/15 of a second. The slow shutter speed seems to slow me down and slow my subjects down.
No one seems to mind holding still and it has often been described to me as therapy. It’s therapy for the subjects and it’s certainly therapy for me.
It’s been like from the first day. I could fall down the stairs and turn around and make an entire show and not even think one thought that I can’t see it, because I can.
There is an alternative world out there that is as powerful as anything that one might describe as normal. Obviously, Helen Keller brought that to the zenith with her life. I think that’s the whole message: Whatever you think is your adversity, is actually your strength.
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“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”Helen Keller
