Theater News

Jeff Daniels, Celia Keenan-Bolger to Star in Broadway's To Kill a Mockingbird

Principal casting for the production, directed by Bartlett Sher, has been announced.

Jeff Daniels (left) and Celia Keenan-Bolger (right) will star in a new play by Aaron Sorkin based on To Kill a Mockingbird.
Jeff Daniels (left) and Celia Keenan-Bolger (right) will star in the play To Kill a Mockingbird, adapted by Aaron Sorkin (center) from Harper Lee's novel.
(© Tricia Baron, Tristan Fuge, David Gordon)

Jeff Daniels will take on the role of Atticus Finch, with Celia Keenan-Bolger as Scout, in Aaron Sorkin's new Broadway play based on Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The production, directed by Bartlett Sher, will begin previews Thursday, November 1, and will open on Thursday, December 13, at a theater to be announced.

Joining Daniels and Keenan-Bolger in the principal company are Will Pullen as Jem, Gideon Glick as Dill, LaTanya Richardson Jackson as Calpurnia, Dakin Matthews as Judge Taylor, Stark Sands as Horace Gilmer, Frederick Weller as Bob Ewell, Erin Wilhelmi as Mayella Ewell, Gbenga Akinnagbe as Tom Robinson, and Stephen McKinley Henderson, Phyllis Somerville, and Liv Rooth. Additional casting will be announced in the coming weeks.

To Kill a Mockingbird will have scenic design by Miriam Buether, costume design by Ann Roth, lighting design by Jennifer Tipton, sound design by Scott Lehrer, and an original score by Adam Guettel.

Written during the early stages of the civil rights movement — at a time when Jim Crow laws were still in effect in many Southern states — and first published in 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird held up a mirror to the ingrained culture of racism in the Deep South. 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. To Kill a Mockingbird is now considered one of the classics of modern American literature, with 50 million copies in print to date.