Hitting Broadway, Punching and Slapping
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/theater/14breslin.html?pagewanted=2&th&emc=th
LOSING control and making it seem real is one of the most difficult challenges an actor can face. Those who succeed are generally seasoned artists like Geoffrey Rush, who portrayed the traumatized pianist in the film “Shine” or Vanessa Redgrave, who played the morphine-addicted mother in the 2003 Broadway revival of “Long Day’s Journey into Night.” Children, lacking both life experience and training, can have a harder time — which is why the role of Helen Keller, the blind and deaf 6-year-old-turning-7-year-old at the heart of William Gibson’s play “The Miracle Worker,” is one of the most difficult in drama; the character must be chiefly expressed through physical action.
Taking up the challenge of Helen is the latest in a series of diverse career choices by the 13-year-old actress Abigail Breslin, best known as the bespectacled beauty-pageant aspirant Olive Hoover in “Little Miss Sunshine” (2006), a role for which Ms. Breslin, at age 10, became one of the youngest nominees ever for an Academy Award for best supporting actress. Making her New York stage debut, Ms. Breslin is playing Helen in the first Broadway revival of “The Miracle Worker” in almost 50 years. Preview performances began Friday at Circle in the Square.
But during a recent interview Ms. Breslin — who cooed over “American Idol”; her dog, Sully; and the new jacket she bought with her Christmas money at Bloomingdale’s — did not betray any off-putting Serious Actress airs. “I don’t really remember,” she said, when asked about her audition for her first film role, at the age of 5, for the alien thriller “Signs.” And she laughed at the suggestion that she might have mapped out a post-nomination career strategy to do films as varied as the kid flick “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl” and “Zombieland,” in which she played a budding con artist named Little Rock.
“I like taking part in stories that I would want to read, and I chose characters primarily on whether she would be someone I’d want to be friends with in real life,” Ms. Breslin said over dinner, joined by her mother and her publicist at a Union Square restaurant not far from the East Village home where she grew up and still lives with her family.
“I’ve always wanted to play Helen, ever since I read a kid’s biography of her, one of those learning-to-read books — it was 20 pages, and I read it seven times in two days,” she continued. “But when I read a script, I’m not thinking about my, you know, my image, I guess you’d call it. I don’t feel any pressure to think about that. I’m kind of a very boring person. I don’t think anyone would have any fun paying attention to me.”
While she may not be a paparazzi magnet, Ms. Breslin is nevertheless an object of some fascination in the world of child and teenage actors because her career, at least at this point, seems to have no limits.
Few children have played as many leading and key supporting roles in high-profile and studio films as Ms. Breslin, who has logged almost 20 movies that have together grossed a total of $700 million. Jodie Foster, Natalie Portman and 15-year-old Dakota Fanning (“War of the Worlds,” “The Secret Life of Bees”) are some of her forerunners. (Asked who she admired most as an actress, Ms. Breslin namedMeryl Streep.)
“I think it’s very telling to watch the film choices of actresses like Dakota and Abigail, because what they’re doing right is challenging themselves by doing different roles in picture after picture,” said Cindy Osbrink, Ms. Fanning’s manager.
Beth Cannon, who has been Ms. Breslin’s manager since the actress was 5, said that her client’s films were chosen for artistic merit first, and that Ms. Breslin was an “avid reader” of scripts. (The actress seconded this.) But Ms. Cannon also said that serious thought and, yes, long-term career strategy were involved with each new Breslin film.
“When we choose a project, we talk about: ‘What is this project going to bring you next? What choices will it open up for you next?’ ” Ms. Cannon said. “After ‘Little Miss Sunshine,’ she had a very big adult audience. So we made a very strategic choice to do ‘Nim’s Island’ and ‘Kit Kittredge’ to get the kid audience, because we knew we needed the younger demographic for her to continue her trajectory to be a star who could at some point hopefully open a movie. And then we went back to movies like ‘Zombieland,’ which we knew would be for the teens and 20-somethings.”
Of course, in the next few years, Ms. Breslin will begin navigating the waters of teenage-romance scripts and more provocative fare that some child stars have found treacherous on their course to eventual adult roles. Ms. Cannon said that one advantage Ms. Breslin had was a lack of pressure from her family, or herself, to work on projects that were artistically weak but financially lucrative. Her mother, Kim, who comes across as quite down-to-earth, said Abigail could walk away from the business any time she wanted and was under no obligation to take teenage-movie roles that she wasn’t excited by.
A Broadway debut in a leading role, on the other hand, is a good way to enhance Ms. Breslin’s skill set, in this case requiring her to tackle the frustration, rage and curiosity of Helen Keller.
With almost no dialogue, the Helen of “The Miracle Worker” is physically volcanic, and her primary relationship in the play — with her teacher, Annie Sullivan (Alison Pill) — is acted out with thrusts and parries, slaps and pinches. Kate Whoriskey, the play’s director, held a weeklong workshop with Ms. Breslin and Ms. Pill before rehearsals solely to focus on the physical interplay between the two actresses.
“For me the big question of the play is: How do you choreograph and work with a character who doesn’t have any language and is one of the leads?” said Ms. Whoriskey, who directed the Off Broadway production “Ruined” last season. “Abby is extraordinary in that she’ll do anything you ask, and do it quite well, and she draws on this enormous empathy that she has for her character.”
One key to Ms. Breslin’s preparation has been Lee Sher, the production’s physical-training adviser, who works with Ms. Breslin and Ms. Pill for an hour before each rehearsal. An Israeli dancer and actress, Ms. Sher has trained the two women in the art of Gaga movement, in which performers tap into energies and emotions to develop a physical language that circumvents habits of communication based on dialogue. Ms. Sher said these movement techniques are well suited to Helen, noting, for instance, the crucial scene when Annie and Helen match strength and wits at the breakfast table. The scene runs to four pages of dialogue-free stage directions in the script.
“For scenes like that we have to help Abby’s body find a new way of being — the way she moves, the way she sits, the way she reacts to Annie — so that the audience will not feel so familiar with the ways that Abby’s Helen acts and reacts,” Ms. Sher said. “Abby, Kate and I want the audience to feel that Helen could do something unpredictable, wild or scary at any moment.”
Ms. Breslin’s capacity to learn these techniques has less to do with maturity, said her co-star Ms. Pill, than with a certain courage to try things.
“It takes a lot of bravery for a 13-year-old, or anyone else, to be the only person in a scene to take control of the situation and respond to something other than what the seeing, hearing people are responding to,” Ms. Pill said.
As much as anything, Ms. Breslin’s preparation focused on making sure that she was not hurting Ms. Pill — or herself — when Helen lashes out, by practicing the stage movements of Ms. Whoriskey and Ms. Sher “a million times, so I could do it without even noticing.”
“That long breakfast scene between Helen and Annie is one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done, but it’s also the most fun,” Ms. Breslin said. “I’m trying to remember what body part goes where, and what to do with my mouth, and training my eyes, and training myself not to speak. It’s really, really fun.”
- Thanks to BS
An Engineer’s Quest to Caption the Web
By John D. Sutter, CNN 2/9/10
The Internet used to be a place where Ken Harrenstien could do anything.
The Google engineer, who has been deaf since childhood, loved the Web because he could e-mail and chat without the aid of a sign language translator.
But as the Web evolved and got faster, online video started to flood in. And all of a sudden, this place that once allowed for limitless communication started to feel walled off to Harrenstien.
“It was only when they started adding videos that the Net was not my means of access, but it became a barrier,” he said in a recent interview, speaking through signing interpreter. “And that was very frustrating.”
The reason for Harrenstien’s trouble is simple: Almost no video on the Internet comes paired with text captioning for the deaf.
While the U.S. Federal Communications Commission requires closed captioning for nearly all television programming, the same isn’t true for online video.
But Harrenstien isn’t sitting back and complaining. He’s dedicated his career at Google to developing technology to bring closed captioning to the Internet.
It’s a quest informed by personal experience. Harrenstien says his work is a reminder that being deaf isn’t a limitation. It’s empowering.
“It is extremely important [to my work] because I’m creating something I want and need for myself,” Harrenstien said in a second interview, conducted through an Internet chat program.
“So, I can identify very well with all of the other people who similarly need and want this. … This sometimes helps me keep going in the face of frustrations.”
Personal quest
When Harrenstien was 5 years old, he had a nightmare that changed his life.
He’d become sick with a high fever and the mumps. He went to sleep one night with the ability to hear. When he woke up from a terrifying dream, he was deaf.
“As I recall, the dream was scarier” than waking up deaf, he said.
Throughout his career and personal life, Harrenstien has found ways that being deaf is an advantage.
He met his wife, for instance, because she saw him using sign language. At the time, she was training to be a sign language interpreter. They bonded over their mutual love for ice skating, and the couple now has three children.
Being deaf also has guided Harrenstien’s work.
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harrenstien worked on a projected called the ARPANET, which was one of the first versions of e-mail and online communications.
“I was motivated because I wanted that system to exist so I could communicate with people,” he said.
He went on to help develop a project called Deafnet, an early online community and messaging tool for deaf people.
For the full article: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/09/deaf.internet.captions/index.html
- Thanks to NVRC, Fairfax
Mayor Bloomberg sports new hearing aid in public
See the photo and full story:
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/02/04/2010-02-04_mike_sports_new_hearing_aid_in_public.html
- Thanks to NY Daily News and FF
Florence teen becomes MS legislature’s first deaf page
The pages at the Mississippi Capitol must be quick on their feet and stay alert to the needs of legislators.
19-year-old Derek Schmitz of Florence jumped right in, despite the fact that he’s 100 percent deaf.
Read the rest of the article at http://www.wlbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=11935199.
- Written by Cheryl Lasseter of the WLBT.
Super Bowl: Signing National Anthem, Monitoring Captions on Commercials
FSDB Student to Sign at Super Bowl
By Jennifer Edwards, St. Augustine Record, 2/6/10
http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2010-02-06/fsdb-student-sign-super-bowl
NVRC Note: Don’t forget to participate in NVRC’s project to monitor captioning of commercials on the Super Bowll. You can get information on our website at http://www.nvrc.org/content.aspx?page=35524§ion=5. Also note that at many past Super Bowls the camera shown the performance of the individual chosen to sign the national anthem. We hope this year will not be one of them.
When Carrie Underwood sings the National Anthem, and Queen Latifah belts out “America the Beautiful” during Super Bowl XLIV Sunday, they’ll be joined by a student from a local high school.
Kinesha Battles, 18, a Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind student, will be there by both, transforming the words into sign language.
By Friday, she’d already made it to Miami Gardens, met Queen Latifah and was “freaking out,” said her mother, Laura Battles. “She’s been texting me all morning.”
The Battles live in Jacksonville.
Laura Battles has done her share of freaking out, too. Hers came earlier, when she found out her daughter was going to be on national TV.
“So, of course, when we got the news that she was going to be signing at the Super Bowl, it was like ‘Oh my God,’” she said.
Kinesha Battles said performing there was “huge” and a “very exciting and great opportunity.”
The only hitch is that she has to work on what she’s going to wear. The dress she chose for the event didn’t show her hands well enough, her mother said, and event organizers are very particular about the garb she can don.
“It’s still up in the air,” Kinesha Battles said.
“It will be a surprise for everybody — even me,” her mom added.
Battles was chosen from among 27 students in her dance troupe who auditioned for the role in the ceremony.
Her dance teacher, Lia Ferrante, said she selected the student because of how expressive she is while signing and because she signed the National anthem several times during a recent basketball tournament.
“She is pretty dependable, responsible; she’s mature,” she said. “She handles herself in a very mature manner.”
Ferrante said the opportunity was provided by the National Association for the Deaf, but that she was given the chance to select who to send.
Laura Battles said her daughter — whom she described as “an outgoing, free spirit” — was born hearing but had suffered from progressive hearing loss since age 3.
She began at FSDB when she was 11, she said: “She will graduate in June, thank God. It’s been very trying for her.”
Kathy Gillespie, FSDB spokeswoman, said auditioners had to know both songs and be able to sign them without assistance from teacher cues.
- Thanks to NVRC, Fairfax
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