Actress Abigail Breslin will play Helen Keller in the first Broadway revival of William Gibson's The Miracle Worker, scheduled to open March 3. (Jeff Christensen/Associated Press)

Abigail Breslin, the young star of Little Miss Sunshine, is set to play Helen Keller in her debut on Broadway.

Breslin, 13, is to play the deaf-blind Keller in a revival of William Gibson's The Miracle Worker, producer David Richenthal said Wednesday. It will be the first New York production of the play since its original 1959 run.

Alison Pill, the Toronto-born actress who starred in Milk and In Treatment, will play Annie Sullivan, the determined young woman who is hired to teach Keller how to communicate.

"It's like the biggest thing in the world," Breslin said. "Helen is a hero of mine — for so many reasons. She never gave up on herself and she had so many people who believed in her like her teacher Annie Sullivan."

Keller, born in 1880 to a wealthy Alabama family, was left deaf and blind by a childhood illness. Sullivan, herself visually impaired, was just 20 when she was hired to teach young Helen. She spent the rest of her life with Keller, who went on to graduate from Radcliffe.

Keller wrote and published the story of her life and was a prominent public speaker. Gibson used her autobiography to write his The Miracle Worker for television's Playhouse 90 in 1957.

His Broadway adaptation, which opened in 1959, starred Anne Bancroft as Annie and Patty Duke as Helen. They reprised those roles in a 1962 film version of The Miracle Worker, with both actresses winning Academy Awards for their performances.

The Miracle Worker will open March 3 at Circle in the Square Theatre on Broadway, directed by Kate Whoriskey, artistic director of Seattle's Intiman Theatre.

Previews begin Feb. 12.

With files from The Associated Press