To Kill a Mockingbird

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10 January 2020 · Follow on Stagedoor

“It’s interesting to see just how much West End theatre is embracing family audiences at the moment. That includes this Broadway transfer of Harper Lee’s classic novel. The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin adapts this story of racism and justice in Alabama in 1934 and its directed by the director of the Lincoln Center, Bartlett Sher. Rhys Ifans plays Atticus Finch, the small town lawyer teaching his young children about morality via one of his cases.”

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5 December 2019 · Follow on Stagedoor

“Oscar-winning writer Aaron Sorkin, who did the West Wing and The Social Network among other things, has had a huge success on Broadway with his adaption of Harper Lee's renowned novel. Described as a "Mockingbird for our Time", it stays true to the spirit of the novel whilst adapting and expanding it to add new layers of meaning to reflect the changes in racial politics since it was written. It should make for one of the big heavyweight plays of the year.”

Overview

Set in Alabama in 1934, To Kill a Mockingbird centres on one of the most venerated characters in American literature, the small-town lawyer Atticus Finch. The cast of characters includes Atticus’s daughter Scout, her brother Jem, their housekeeper and caretaker Calpurnia, their visiting friend Dill, a mysterious neighbour the reclusive Arthur “Boo” Radley, and the other indelible residents of Maycomb, Alabama.

To Kill a Mockingbird, celebrating one year on Broadway today, has not played to an empty seat and holds the benchmark of having become the most successful American play in Broadway history. A national tour of the United States opens at The Kennedy Center in Washington DC in August 2020.

Critic reviews

A mockingbird for our moment: beautiful and elegiac

New York Times

If Sorkin’s adaptation lacks the subtlety and plainspokenness of Lee’s novel, it has moments of old-fashioned power and others of surprising tenderness

⋅ Time Out New York

Aaron Sorkin’s vigorous version is gripping theatre

⋅ The Telegraph (of the New York production)

Aron Sorkin's controversial adaptation of the Harper Lee novel spellbinds Broadway

⋅ The Guardian (of the New York production)

Against all odds, writer Aaron Sorkin and director Bartlett Sher have succeeded in crafting a stage-worthy adaptation of Harper Lee’s classic American novel

Variety (of the New York production)