"The Miracle Worker" to be first Broadway play to offer described, captioned experience for blind or deaf audience members

From Playbill:

The producers of The Miracle Worker announced on Dec. 9 that the Broadway play will be the first Broadway play to offer the D-Scriptive audio system for blind and low vision audience members, as well as the I-Caption system for deaf and hard-of-hearing audience members, both free of charge at every performance.

D-Scriptive is an automated audio-description system "allowing theatregoers to hear a detailed description of all visual aspects of the production, including physical drama and humor, choreography, lighting, sets and costumes." I-Caption is a hand-held captioning system, also automated, that displays verbatim texts of the entire show as it's performed, including lyrics, announcements and show information. Both systems are timed to the action of the show and integrated into the production's cueing system, "so that the commentary and captioning always keep pace with the action onstage and can adjust themselves according to any fluctuations in the performance."
As previously announced, The Miracle Worker will also star Alison Pill (Tony Award nominee for The Lieutenant of Inishmore) as Annie Sullivan. Directed by Kate Whoriskey (Ruined), the play will be staged in the round for the first time on Broadway, at Circle in the Square Theatre.

Previews will begin on Feb. 12, 2010. Opening night is March 3, 2010, at Circle in the Square Theatre (235 West 50th Street).

Understudy Kyra Siegel, age ten, began her performing career at six months of age with Dance Theatre of Oregon at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts in Eugene, OR. Since then, she has been actively involved in dance, theatre and later gymnastics both in Oregon and on tour with parents Marc Siegel and Pamela Lehan-Siegel, who are professional dancers/artistic directors of Dance Theatre of Oregon. She recently completed a successful October 2009 run of The Miracle Worker in the role of Helen Keller at the Cottage Theatre in Cottage Grove, OR. She has performed extensively with Dance Theatre of Oregon in lead roles including her favorite role, as Mowgli in The Jungle Book, and also as Heidi in Heidi, and Mr. Nilsson in Pippi Longstocking; with Eugene Ballet in Dracula, Peter Pan, Midsummer Night's Dream and Nutcracker; at Cottage Theater in The Sound of Music, Wizard of Oz and Oliver; with Lane Community College as Mamillius in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale and Gracie Shinn in The Music Man.

Set in Tescumbia, AL, in the 1880s, The Miracle Worker "tells the story of the young Helen Keller, who became blind and deaf following a childhood illness, and the extraordinary woman, Annie Sullivan, who teaches the angry and frustrated child how to communicate with the world."

Co-lead producer David Richenthal has produced several Tony Award-winning productions, including Death of a Salesman, Long Day's Journey Into Night, The Crucible and I Am My Own Wife. His production of Finian's Rainbow is currently playing at the St. James Theatre on Broadway. Co-lead producer Eric Falkenstein presented last year's production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons.