The national tour of To Kill A Mockingbird — a history-making production — makes its Nashville premiere at TPAC’s Jackson Hall August 9 – 14. Academy Award-winner Aaron Sorkin’s play — based on Harper Lee’s classic 1960 novel — comes to town with Emmy award-winning actor Richard Thomas as stately southern lawyer Atticus Finch.
About the Story
Set in Alabama in 1934, the story of racial injustice and childhood innocence centers on Finch who chooses to defend a black man falsely accused of rape. The story also chronicles the childhood antics of Atticus’s young daughter Scout and her brother, Jem, as their father sets about his work. Other characters include housekeeper and caregiver Calpurnia and Dill, a childhood friend. In addition, there’s the reclusive Arthur “Boo” Radley and other unforgettable residents.
What’s Different from Lee’s Book
Aaron’ Sorkin’s version of the play provides some changes from Lee’s book. These include a new narrative structure and black characters who openly express anger and frustration. It features all of the same main plot twists of the original story, but reflects changes in storytelling and society in the nearly 60 years since the book was published. The play uses the trial as the centerpiece from which everything else hangs. Characters question Atticus’s insistence on seeing goodness in his racist neighbors and introduces an impatient yearning for social change expressed by both Atticus and Calpurnia. In addition, the story no longer depicts Atticus as a drinking man or a gun owner. Instead, as Harper Lee’s estate wished, Atticus is a clean-living hero throughout, described as the “most honest and decent person in Maycomb.”
About the show
To Kill A Mockingbird holds the record as the highest-grossing American play in Broadway history. The production played to sold-out houses until the Covid-19 shutdown in March, 2020. The production resumed performances on Oct. 5, 2021, and concluded its run at the Shubert Theatre on Jan. 16, 2022.
For more information, visit tokillamockingbirdbroadway.com and follow the show on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Single tickets for “To Kill A Mockingbird” start at $36 and are on sale now at TPAC.org, by phone at 615-782-4040 and in person at the TPAC Box Office, 505 Deaderick St., in downtown Nashville.
