Theater News

Broadway's To Kill a Mockingbird Settles Court Dispute

Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel is back on track after legal battle with the author’s estate threatened to derail its premiere.

Kenji Fujishima
Broadway
The Broadway premiere of Aaron Sorkin's (center) adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird — set to star Jeff Daniels (left) and Celia Keenan-Bolger (right) — is back on track.
The Broadway premiere of To Kill a Mockingbird — set to star Jeff Daniels (left) and Celia Keenan-Bolger (right) in an adaptation by Aaron Sorkin (center) — is back on track.
(© Tricia Baron, Tristan Fuge, David Gordon)

According to The New York Times, Aaron Sorkin's stage adaptation of Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird has settled its legal dispute with Lee's estate and will be coming to Broadway this fall after all.

After having previously announced the production, cast, and opening date, Harper Lee's estate filed a lawsuit in Alabama in March alleging that Sorkin's script departed too much from the book, thus violating a contract between Lee and the producers. In April, the show's producer, Scott Rudin, filed a countersuit in New York, demanding $10 million in damages from the estate and warning that it could force him to cancel the Broadway production altogether.

Today, requests were filed in federal court in Manhattan to dismiss both cases. No details about the settlement were offered.