08/03/2026
The Batavia Players in conjunction with the Batavia Lions Club and the New York State School for the Blind will be presenting William Gibson’s play The Miracle Worker on October 9, 10 and 11. Auditions will held on August 20 and 21. The production will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Helen Kellers visit to the New York State School for the Blind and to Batavia on March 20, 1926 and will be directed by Lion and Batavia Player Tom Clark.
While she was born with both sight and hearing she contracted an illness that left her deaf and blind at the age of 19 months. This condition made it extremely difficult for the family as they worked to keep her home. They pursued what, at the time were very limited, treatment resources and adjusted the family life around her needs. They contacted the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston who arranged for a teacher/governess, Annie Sullivan, to journey south to work with Helen. Annie was a strong willed Irish girl who, because having dealt with her own sight problems and troubled early life, was able to to persevere to achieve a miracle as the title indicates.
Later in life Helen Keller addressed the national convention of the Lions Club which was still a young organization in search of a core mission. She challenged the Lions to be “knight for the blind”. The Lions have grown into an international organization that supports programs that include vision screening for school age children, providing eye glasses to those who cannot afford them, providing visual assistance equipment to libraries and individuals and other programs that that grew out of that challenge. In Batavia, the Lions Clubs of Western New York provide support to the students at the State Schools’ Blind Student Activity Fund to supplement the various activities.
Visit the Batavia Players website for audition and ticket information. If you are interested in exploring participating in the production or to learn more about the Lions Club please feel free to contact Tom Clark at [email protected].
Helen Keller has left her mark on the world and it seemed that presenting The Miracle Worker was an appropriate way to acknowledge her contribution to her humanitarian work.
