Beloved American novel To Kill a Mockingbird is being adapted for Broadway. The new production is set for the 2017-2018 season.
The New York Times reports that the play will be produced by Scott Rudin with an adapted script by Aaron Sorkin, both of whom were behind the films The Social Network and Steve Jobs. Tony Award-winner Barlett Sher will direct.
The announcement comes not long after the release of the strange though commercially successful sequel to Harper Lee’s novel. Go Set a Watchman was published in July last year amid accusations that 89-year-old Lee was not cognizant enough to give her consent, and that various parties signed on her behalf.
The Broadway adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird has echoes of the same controversy. In an email to the New York Times, Lee’s literary agent, Andrew Nurnberg, acknowledges that the author had long held reservations about selling the stage rights to her book to a professional theater. But, he writes, “she finally decided that Scott would be the right person to embrace this.”