THEATRE + COMEDY

Huntsville Community Theatre presents To Kill a Mockingbird. Written by Harper Lee and dramatized by Christopher Sergel. An adult drama celebratng the 50th anniversary of the renowned novel of the same name. Performances on October 8, 9, 15 and 16 (all 7:30 PM); October 10 and 17 (both 2:00 PM) at Old Town Theatre.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a coming-of-age story of Scout Finch and her brother, Jem, in 1930's Alabama. Through their neighborhood meanderings and the example of their father, they grow to understand that the world isn't always fair and that prejudice is a very real aspect of their world no matter how subtle it seems.

The summer when Scout was six and Jem was ten, they met Dill, a little boy who spent the summer with his aunt who lived next door to the Finches. Dill and Jem become obsessed with the idea of making Boo Radley, the neighborhood recluse, come out of his home. They go through plan after plan, but nothing draws him out. However, these brushes with the neighborhood ghost result in a tentative friendship over time and soon the Finch children realize that Boo Radley deserves to live in peace, so they leave him alone.

Scout and Jem's God-like father, Atticus, is a respected and upstanding lawyer in small Maycomb County. When he takes on a case that pits innocent, black Tom Robinson against two dishonest white people, Atticus knows that he will lose, but he has to defend the man or he can't live with himself. The case is the biggest thing to hit Maycomb County in years and it turns the whole town against Atticus, or so it seems. Scout and Jem are forced to bear the slurs against their father and watch with shock and disillusionment as their fellow townspeople convict an obviously innocent man because of his race. The only real enemy that Atticus made during the case was Bob Ewell, the trashy white man who accused Tom Robinson of raping his daughter. Despite Ewell's vow to avenge himself against Atticus, Atticus doesn't view Ewell as any real threat.

Tom Robinson is sent to a work prison to await another trial, but before Atticus can get him to court again, Tom is shot for trying to escape the prison. It seemsthat the case is finally over and life returns to normal until Halloween night. On the way home from a pageant, Bob Ewell attacks Jem and Scout in the darkness. After Jem's arm is badly broken, their ghostly neighbor, Boo Radley, rescues Scout and her brother. In order to protect Boo's privacy, the sheriff decides that Bob Ewell fell on his own knife while he was struggling with Jem. Boo Radley returns home never to be seen again.

Through the events of those two years, Scout learns that no matter their differences or peculiarities, the people of the world and of Maycomb County are all people. No one is lesser or better than anyone else because they're all people. She realizes that once you get to know them, most people are good and kind no matter what they seem like on the outside.

Author - Harper Lee (Nelle Harper Lee -born April 28, 1926) “American writer, famous for her race relations novel To Kill A Mockingbird, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. The book became an international bestseller and was adapted into screen in 1962. Lee was 34 when the work was published, and it has remained her only novel. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

Descended from Robert E. Lee, the Southern Civil War general, Harper Lee was born in Monroeville, Alabama. Her father was a former newspaper editor and proprietor, who had served as a state senator and practiced as a lawyer in Monroeville. Lee studied law at the University of Alabama from 1945 to 1949, and spent a year as an exchange student in Oxford University, Wellington Square. Six months before finishing her studies, she went to New York to pursue a literary career. She worked as an Airline reservation clerk with Eastern Air Lines and British Overseas Airways during the 1950s. In 1959 Lee accompanied Truman Capote to Holcombe, Kansas, as a research assistant for Capote's classic 'non-fiction' novel In Cold Blood (1966).

To Kill a Mockingbird was Lee's first novel. The book is set in Maycomb, Alabama, in the 1930s. Atticus Finch, a lawyer and a father, defends a black man, Tom Robinson, who is accused of raping a poor white girl, Mayella Ewell. The setting and several of the characters are drawn from life - Finch was the maiden name of Lee's mother and the character of Dill was drawn from Capote, Lee's childhood friend.” – per Harper Lee’s Biography, (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.harperlee.com/bio.htm.

Dramatist - Christopher Sergel (May 7, 1918 – May 7, 1993). “Sergel’s interests and talents led him on many adventures throughout the world. As captain of the schooner Chance, he spent two years in the South Pacific; as a writer for Sports Afield magazine, he lived in the African bush for a year; as a lieutenant commander during WWII, he taught celestial navigation; as a playwright, his adaptation of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio was seen on Broadway.

But throughout his life, his greatest adventure and deepest love was his work with Dramatic Publishing [Sergel served as President of Dramatic Publishing from 1970 – 1993]. During that time, he wrote adaptations of To Kill a Mockingbird, Cheaper By the Dozen, The Mouse That Roared, Up the Down Staircase, Fame, Black Elk Speaks and many more.

Sergel’s love of theatre and his caring for writers made him a generous and spirited mentor to many playwrights here and around the world. His inspiration and integrity attracted to the company fine writers including C.P. Taylor, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Arthur Miller, Roald Dahl and E.B. White - to name just a few.

Sergel once said he hoped to be remembered as E.B. White described Charlotte... ‘…a true friend and a good writer.’" – per Christopher Sergel’s biography, (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.dramaticpublishing.com/AuthorBio.php?titlelink=9848.

About the Director - Rebecca Cobo
Rebecca Cobo – has worked in community theatre in Texas, Colorado and Oklahoma. This will be her second time directing “To Kill a Mockingbird”, the first time she directed the shortened version. She was the director of the State Award Thespian team for ten years. Rebecca’s most recent HCT production was last season’s Bell, Book and Candle, for that production she played the part of ‘Aunt Queenie’.

Some of Rebecca’s other acting credits are: Morning’s at Seven (Esther Cramton) produced here at HCT; Rimers of Eldridge (Mary Windrod) and Moon over Buffalo (Ethel) at SHSU; and The Odd Couple (Gwendolyn Pidgeon) and Gaslight (Supporting) at El Reno Community Theatre in Oklahoma. She also performed in Sam Shepard’s True West (Mom) in a repertory theatre in New York City.

Rebecca would like to send special thanks to her parents who let her play a bride doll even before she started to school, and to her beloved Gary who makes his own supper so she can play in the theatre.

Produced by special arrangementwith THE DRAMATIC PUBLISHING COMPANY of Woodstock, Illinois.