Atticus is going to Manhattan.
The hero of "To Kill a Mockingbird" will bow in an Aaron Sorkin-written adaptation of the novel, to be staged on Broadway sometime in the 2017-2018 season, according to the New York Times.
While a theatrical version of the novel has been performed many times in regional non-professional theaters, including in the Monroeville, Ala., courthouse that is the focus of the novel, this is the first time that author Harper Lee has licensed the story for a professional production, according to the Times.
The show will be produced by Scott Rudin, who has collaborated with Sorkin on the films “Moneyball,” “Social Network” and “Steve Jobs.”
"Mockingbird" remained in the news last year when Lee published a follow-up novel, "Go Set a Watchman." Readers wondered why Lee had waited 55 years between publishing her first and second novels, and reviewers were aghast that the lawyer Atticus Finch, a noble defender of an unjustly accused black man in the first book, had become a segregationist in the second.
Fanning interest in the new manuscript was the hugger-mugger surrounding its "discovery" by Lee's attorney, Tonja B. Carter.
"Mockingbird" became of the most successful debut novels of all time, and spawned an Academy-award winning movie starring Gregory Peck. It has sold 40 million copies and is used in countless middle school and high school English and literature classes to engage young readers with the written word.
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