After five decades of waiting, Broadway has finally landed on "To Kill A Mockingbird".
New York's native Scott Rudin, also known as a prominent and prolific theater producer announced on Wednesday the production of the first Broadway of Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning novel.
Aaron Sorkin will be adapting the play, where his known work include the movie "The Social Media" and the TV series "The West Wing". Bartlett Sher will be directing the play, who has received the Tony Award of the Broadway revival of "South Pacific".
According to correspondence of a former literary agent Annie Laurie Williams from an archive at Columbia University, the move was marked after a series of reversal by Ms. Lee, where she made it clear that she didn't want a Broadway adaptation of the novel "To Kill A Mockingbird" after it was released in 1960.
But it's not long before the author surprised the literary world when last year she made the headline by releasing the novel "Go Set A Watchman" which Lee wrote before Mockingbird where long after that, the book was understood by fans as a symbol of tolerance and justice.
It was announced to her attorney Tonja Carter last year would take over production of Mockingbird's theater adaptation at a museum in her hometown, a play she never had the chance to see.
Ms. Williams wrote a letter in 1961 to a theatrical publishing company saying, "Before we sold the motion picture rights of "To Kill a Mockingbird", several Broadway producers tried to get Miss Lee to consent to having a dramatization of her book made for Broadway. She said she did not want her book made into a play."
After failed attempts to get Ms. Lee's consent, the 1962 film showed great potential for the materials to be put on stage.
