Triton students to present ‘The Miracle Worker’

It may be the most challenging play that Triton students have ever performed, all agree as they prepare for performances of “The Miracle Worker” next weekend.
“In 14 years of directing, it’s the most challenging play I’ve done,” said director Anne Schreiber. It has a smaller cast than other plays, she said, but she chose it because she knew the students could handle it.
“The Miracle Worker” tells the story of Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan. Blind and deaf since suffering a high fever as a baby, Helen Keller has spent years unable to communicate. This has left her frustrated and occasionally violent. In a last effort to prevent her institutionalization, her parents contact a school for the blind. The school sends Annie Sullivan, herself partially blind, to teach the young Helen.
After their initial tumultuous meeting, the play follows the their story of Annie gaining Helen’s trust and teaching her. Helen Keller later went on to earn a college degree and became an author, political activist and lecturer.
Schreiber is not the only one who views the play as a challenge.
“It’s so hard being blind and deaf,” said Senior Paris Ellingson, who plays Helen. Learning to move about the stage all the while giving the impression she could not see was difficult, she said, “until I got the hang of it.”
Ellingson also was dealing with appearing in her first Triton play, she said. The last time she appeared in a play, she added, was in the fourth grade when she played Jill in a Prairie Fire version of “Jack and Jill.” Still, the challenging role has not deterred her from planning to do the spring musical at Triton.
It is not only acting newcomers who find the play challenging.
Connor Kleinwort, who plays James Keller, Helen’s older brother, is an experienced actor. He said this is his 10th high school play and he has probably done 12 or 13 altogether.
“For me, onstage it’s one of the hardest I’ve been in,” he said. “All the action is focused on Helen and she doesn’t talk. You don’t want to take it away from Helen.”
It’s really different from some of the other plays he has done, he said, such as “Greater Tuna” and “Arsenic and Old Lace.” Even other dramas that the school has done have had their humorous moments, he said, but there is basically no humor in “The Miracle Worker.”
Jasmine Bolster is in her first play as a ninth grader, playing Beatrice, one of the blind girls.
“I try not to look when someone is talking, she said, explaining how she tries to portray a blind person.
Bennet Ruhland plays two characters in the play, the Doctor and Dr. Anagnos.
A Triton play veteran who says he has been in almost every production during his high school career, he agrees it is a difficult play.
Saying he had done both serious and humorous plays, “this has very little humor. It’s definitely different for Triton.”
“The Miracle Worker” has been done as a Broadway play and also in several different television and movie versions.
Each of the actors in the Triton play has approached learning how to portray their character in a different way.
Paris said she has watched all the movies and also documentaries about Helen Keller.
Connor, on the other hand, chose not to watch the movies in preparation so he could develop his own presentation of the character.
The full cast of “The Miracle Worker” includes Tess Zastrow as Annie Sullivan; Paris Ellingson as Helen Keller; Cory Utech as Captain Keller; Julianne Auer as Kate Keller; Connor Kleinwort as James Keller and Morgan Pluto as Aunt Ev.
Bennet Ruhland as Doctor/Dr. Anagnos; Hanna Strom as Viney; Ashley Dominguez as Martha. The blind girls include Jasmine Bolster as Beatrice, Isabella Selthun as Alice, Lena Moe as Sarah and Mary Zill as Mary. Colton Majerus plays Jimmy Sullivan/Percy.
Performances include a senior citizen matinee at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 5. Weekend performances are at 7 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Nov. 7,8 and 9 at 7 p.m.