Born and raised in Monroeville, Alabama, Nelle Harper Lee authored the world-renowned story of Scout, Jem, and their father, Atticus in To Kill A Mockingbird. Harper Lee was the youngest of four children and would grow up to attend Huntingdon College from 1944-45, study law at the University of Alabama 1945-49, and spend a year at Oxford University. In the 1950s, she moved to New York City where, after working briefly as an airline reservation clerk, she decided to focus exclusively on her writing. After being told that her first manuscript read too much like a series of loosely connected short stories, Harper Lee spent the next two and a half years revising the book, and in 1960, To Kill A Mockingbird was published to widespread acclaim, winning the Pulitzer Prize and thousands of devoted readers. Despite being told that it would likely only sell a couple thousand copies, 10 million copies were sold worldwide in its first six years.
Since its publication, To Kill A Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country, and served as the basis of an enormously popular motion picture. The film, directed by Robert Mulligan and adapted to the screen by Horton Foote, was released in 1962, and it also received overwhelmingly positive reviews. Marking the film debuts of actors such as Robert Duvall, William Windom, and Alice Ghostley, To Kill A Mockingbird won three Academy Awards and was nominated for eight more, including Best Picture. It’s now listed in the National Film Registry, and in 2003, the American Film Institute named Atticus Finch the greatest movie hero of the 20th century.
Over 30 years after the book and its movie counterpart, Monroe County Heritage Museum of Monroeville, Alabama presented the very first stage adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird in 1991 as a way to raise money to renovate its old courthouse. Ever since, the play has made its way across the globe, traveling to places like the Israel International Cultural Festival in Jerusalem, Kingston Upon Hull in England, the Museum of Cultural Arts in Chicago, Hong Kong’s Asia Center, and even to Washington, D.C., where it was performed at the Kennedy Center for Congress and other dignitaries as well as sold-out crowds. To Kill A Mockingbird was voted the 2017 Audience Choice Play by Circle Theatre patrons and will be the first time that it has been produced here.
Performances run August 10-12, 16-19, 23-26 at 7pm and August 13 at 5pm. Tickets are available online or through the Box Office.