Each year during weekends from early June to mid-July Ivy Green, the birthplace and family home of Helen Keller hosts performances of the award-winning, poignant and ultimately triumphant story The Miracle Worker, which is no less than the story of Annie Sullivan. She was the Miracle Worker, the brilliant young woman who cracked through the wall of silent darkness that surrounded the young Helen Keller.

The setting is Ivy Green in Tuscumbia, Alabama, built in 1820 by David and Mary Fairfax Moore Keller, grandparents of Helen Keller in historic Tuscumbia. The production is outdoors in the actual backyard of the house in which Helen was born and raised, on a slightly elevated platform a few feet away from the audience. The rooms making up the stage are laid out much as they would be in the house itself. The lighting is the only thing that changes as the action moves from setting to setting. It's all there in front with nothing to detract from the sense of peering into the rooms where Helen's parents confront the reality that their baby can't see or hear. Or as they argue about what's best to do for the youngster who is almost out of control and isolated from those who love her.

Like the other visitors, having toured the rooms of the house (with much of the original furniture and artifacts) before the performance, seen the actual pump where Helen first understood that there is a way of communicating, there is a way to say water, it was easy to feel that it isn't a set created for a play, but the house itself.

Interpreters sign the dialogue using American Sign Language. These folks, dressed in black so as not to visually distract, perform a ballet with their hands while their faces express the emotions. It is no less compelling than the performance of the actors taking place a few feet further back.

The focus of the struggle is often on Keller, and the remarkable odds she overcame. But in the play, the focus also shifts to Annie Sullivan and visitors learn much of her history. Briefly told within the context of the play, her tenacity and courage is no less worthy of admiration. This woman too triumphed over pain, isolation, and challenges. Helen Keller was indeed a remarkable woman, and her teacher no less so.

The facts of Anne or Annie (as she was sometimes called) life are murkier, but we do know that she was born in Massachusetts in 1866. Her parents had come to the US to escape the Irish Potato Famine (1847). Her mother died of tuberculosis when Annie was eight. And by ten years of age, her father had deserted the family leaving them at Massachusetts State Infirmary and Alms house.

Sullivan was devoted to her younger brother who had tuberculosis and was also physically unable to care for himself. He died in the infirmary not long after they arrived. Sullivan herself was almost blind. She had contracted trachoma, and several operations to try to restore her vision hadn't work. Finally life began to improve when she was admitted to the Perkins School for the Blind. She was able to attend classes, and a successful surgery restored some sight and. A brilliant if sometimes difficult student, she graduated as class valedictorian and was soon offered employment as tutor for the Keller's daughter Helen.

The play is a weaving of two amazing stories in a perfect outdoor setting. The effect is pure magic. The combination of the entwined stories is compelling, and eternal.