How to go
What: “To Kill a Mockingbird”
When: March 8-April 10; Show times are 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 4 and 8 p.m. Saturdays and 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays, except for the final Sunday, April 10, when it only plays at 2 p.m.
Where: Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, 962 Mt. Adams Circle
Cost: $30-$75
More info: 800-582-3208 or www.cincyplay.com
Eric Ting, director of the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park production of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” opening March 8, said they were in their second full week of rehearsal when they learned that “Mockingbird” author, Harper Lee, had passed away from natural causes at 89 in mid-February.
“When we heard, we all recognized a certain deeper responsibility that we had,” he said.
Originally published in 1960, the book “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a school-taught classic about violent racial conflict in a small American town, won the Pulitzer Prize and was adapted into an equally well-known film two years later, starring Gregory Peck, who remains the most enduring image of the novel’s hero, Atticus Finch. Broadway playwright Christopher Sergel adapted the play for the stage in 1990. In the years since, individual companies have made their own adjustments to the production, and the Playhouse is no exception.
“We wanted to shake the dust off the story,” Ting said. “I want audiences to hear it for the first time, not just see the movie onstage.”
Ting pointed out there are a lot of similarities between 1960, 1933-35 (when the novel is set) and 2016.
“We have a country that’s been in an economic crisis,” he said. “We have a disappearing middle class and a polarizing shift within the country, politically and socially. It’s very similar to what was happening in the 1960s and 1930s. The language feels really immediate. Listening to the trial scene during a run, we realized this could be a trial that’s happening right now.”
Ting said there are no current plans to make a special dedication to Lee when the play opens, but noted it was an “excellent idea.”
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