The Miracle Worker

The Miracle Worker, you all know the play, the story of Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan.

It is always a popular play and has been a good money maker and we did several student matinees that were all full.

In recent years we have not had too many student matinees as schools no longer have any money for field trips.

So the big scenic item on this play is of course the water pump which needs to really work for the big break through scene at the end.

It is not too hard to do, just a real pump mounted on a wooden box with a short pipe that goes down into a 5 gallon pail of water.

Once it is primed and working it was no problem.

Thinking back now I think this was our first show in the fall and Miss Julie was the second play, unlike I wrote in a previous entry.

The water pump was used again for Miss Julie after being bought for The Miracle Worker.

I thought I had programs from all the plays I have worked on but it turns out that I am missing a few here and there.

The programs help me fill in names and dates and help me remember things about the shows.

So do I have any stories about this show, of course I do.

The set had two levels with the bedroom on the upper level.

After I built the platforms and they started to rehearse on them they found that the audience could not see the cradle that was suppose to hold the baby Helen Keller.

It was decided that lower the platform but instead of taking it apart, removing the legs, cutting them and putting it all back together I decided to cut the legs in place.

After marking the legs a foot or so up from the floor and used a circular saw and started to cut the legs from one end.

When I was about halfway done the platform tilted over and raised the uncut legs up in the air which made them easy to trim.

I am not sure how I cut the middle legs without killing myself , I think we just pushed in a few longer legs to lift it all up just enough to get it done, but it did not take too long to do.

Not one of my brightest ideas but it was fast.

Once the platform legs were cut down, the rest of the set offered few additional problems.

Now if you know the play you are aware that there is a cute scene with a dog that is part of the play in which Helen tries to teach it to read sign language.

Animals and children onstage, always fun.

After the play with found nice piles of crap backstage.

Whoever was supposed to take care of the dog did not do a good job.

The scene designer had arranged a tour of the theatre for his 9 year old daughter’s class but then could not be there so I ended up doing it.

I was not sure what to expect but the group of kids who came were great.

One of my students who was also acting in the play helped me with the tour and we were able to answer most of their questions about the play.

I brought them up on the stage and showed behind the set and had them touch the walls which were still made of canvas at that time.

The biggest question the students had was they wanted to know why everything on the set was painted brown; walls, props, paintings and furniture.

I told them that the designer wanted to show the audience how Heller Keller, who was blind, saw the world: shapes but no color.

The kids seemed to think that was cool and they asked about many other questions and wanted to know how everything worked.

When I had one of the students run the main curtain up and down and they all enjoyed that too.

A week or so later I got a big box of thank you letters addressed to me and my student thanking us for the tour.

It was a very nice feeling.

Soon after meeting with the elementary school kids I gave more or less the same tour to a group of college students and they could care less.

Nothing I said or showed them impressed them at all.

They did not ask questions and just wanted to get out of the theatre as soon as they could.

Not a good crop of students that year.

We would do the play again thirteen years later, and yes we used the same pump.

I was just down in our storage area last week giving a tour to a guest scenic designer and I saw the pump, just hanging in the prop room waiting for the next time we do The Miracle Worker.

It has been fourteen years so I guess we are due to do it again soon.

I will let you know when and if we do the play again.

Classes start again this coming Monday and I am interested to see which students will be returning and what new students we will have.

It is always a surprise.

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