Broadway’s been anything but kind to “Little Miss Sunshine.”
Abigail Breslin’s Broadway revival of The Miracle Worker is set to close next month, after it failed to win over critics and audiences.
The revival of William Gibson’s play about a young deaf and blind Helen Keller, played by Breslin, and her instructor, played by Alison Pill, has earned mixed reviews since it debuted on the Great White Way earlier this year.
“Surely this production, the first revival of The Miracle Worker to come to Broadway, could have highlighted the play’s strengths more effectively… (director) Ms Whoriskey’s production never finds its focus,” one critic wrote.
In fact, the show has been troubled even before its debut. Last winter, several advocates for people with disabilities protested Breslin’s casting, arguing that producers had failed to give a deaf and/or blind actress the opportunity to audition for the role of Keller.
The Miracle Worker will close April 4, according to The New York Times. The production marked the Broadway debut for Breslin, now 13, who was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award for the 2006 box office hit Little Miss Sunshine.