‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ Heads To Broadway, Casts Jeff Daniels As Lead
Jeff Daniels will head Aaron Sorkin's stage adaptation of Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, which is slated to premiere this fall.
Daniels To Play Atticus Finch
The actor has been tapped to play the role of Atticus Finch: a small-town lawyer who defends a black man accused of raping a white woman in the book. The character was famously portrayed by actor Gregory Peck in the 1962 film adaptation of Lee's novel, which was penned by playwright Horton Foote.
Daniels, who has been nominated for a Tony award twice, last appeared on Broadway in 2016 alongside Michelle Williams for Scottish playwright David Harrower's drama production, Blackbird.
This won't be the first time Sorkin and Daniels will be working together. They previously teamed up for the HBO drama, Newsroom. Scott Rudin, who served as an executive producer on the series, will produce To Kill a Mockingbird in tandem with Lincoln Center Theater.
Remaining Cast Members
Daniels will share the stage with Celia Keenan-Bolger and Will Pullen, who play Finch's daughter, Scout, and her older brother, Jem, respectively.
The supporting cast includes LaTanya Richardson Jackson as Finch's housekeeper Calpurnia, Frederick Weller as Bob Ewell, Gideon Glick as Dill: Stark Sands as prosecutor Horace Gilmer, Erin Wilhelmi as Mayella Ewell, Dakin Matthews as Judge Taylor, and Gbenga Akinnagbe as Tom Robinson in addition to Stephen McKinley Henderson, Phyllis Somerville, and Liv Rooth.
Sorkin's Different Take On Story
The upcoming Broadway production, which will be directed by Tony winner Bartlett Sher will differ from Lee's and Foote's versions.
In September, Sorkin told Vulture that in his retelling of the classic tale, Daniels' character "becomes Atticus Finch by the end of the play, and while he's going along, he has a kind of running argument with Calpurnia, the housekeeper, which is a much bigger role in the play I just wrote."
Sorkin's Broadway credits include the 1989 military courtroom drama, A Few Good Men, which was later adapted into the 1992 film starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. He also wrote the screenplay for the 2007 Broadway production The Farnsworth Invention.
Sorkin won an Academy Award in 2011 for his adapted screenplay for The Social Network and is nominated again this year in the same category for the crime drama, Molly's Game.
Previews for To Kill a Mockingbird are expected to begin on Nov. 1, and the opening night is scheduled for Dec. 13.
