Aaron Sorkin's To Kill a Mockingbird Adaptation Sets Date for Broadway Premiere

Aaron Sorkin's stage adaptation of Harper Lee's legendary novel To Kill a Mockingbird has set the date for its Broadway premiere.

A production spokesperson confirmed that the drama will open on Broadway on Thursday, December 13, 2018. Tony winner Bartlett Sher will direct.

Based on an event that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, in the 1930s, Lee’s story of racial injustice and the destruction of childhood innocence centers on small-town lawyer and single father Atticus Finch (modeled after Lee’s father, attorney Amasa Lee), his young daughter, Scout, her older brother, Jem, and their mysterious neighbor, the reclusive Arthur "Boo" Radley. Written during the early stages of the civil rights movement — when Jim Crow laws were still in effect in many Southern states — Lee’s novel held a mirror up to the culture of racism of the Deep South.

Published in 1960, Lee's debut novel earned immediate acclaim, winning the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and getting published in 10 languages within a year of its release. In 1962, the book was adapted as an Oscar-winning film with a screenplay by Horton Foote and direction by Robert Mulligan. It starred Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch and Mary Badham as Scout. To Kill a Mockingbird is now considered one of the classics of modern American literature, with 50 million copies in print to date.

Casting and additional information is still to be announced.