The music track is “On Moonlight Bay, sung by Betty Johnson and the Johnson Family Singers.
In 1916, when LITTLE ISLAND OF JOY takes place, the 30-year-old Helen Keller was arguably the most famous woman in America: author of best-selling books and numerous magazine articles; a highly paid national speaker with her teacher, Anne Sullivan Macy; and a radical socialist who spoke out loudly and clearly against President Wilson’s plan for the United States to enter the world war against Germany.
During that time Peter Fagan, another radical socialist, was working as Ms. Keller’s traveling secretary. On one auspicious day, Peter revealed to Helen that he cared for her, deeply, which both surprised and delighted her.
If only those closest to her had partaken in that delight. Many years later, Helen wrote about this passionate, and secret, love affair, referring to it as “my little island of joy, surrounded by dark water.”
This is the story I explore in LITTLE ISLAND OF JOY.
A play in three acts, LITTLE ISLAND OF JOY won 3rd Prize at the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild-Julie Harris Playwright Award Competition and was a semi-finalist at the 2016 Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference.
LITTLE ISLAND OF JOY
