Big news in New York theater this week! Two high-profile adaptations are Broadway bound: Harper Lee's Pulitzer winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Disney's 2014 Oscar winning animated film, Frozen.
To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway
Two years ago producer Scott Rudin began fishing to land the Broadway rights for Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird. And it’s finally a done deal, the announcement coming yesterday that Mockingbird will most likely be arriving during the 2017-2018 season. The script will be penned by playwright/screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, the force field behind TV’s multi-Emmy-winning West Wing, while Tony-winning director Bartlett Sher (South Pacific; currently represented on Broadway by the critically-acclaimed Fiddler on the Roof revival) will helm the production (cast and creative TBA).
When Rudin, a lifelong Mockingbird fan, began his campaign, it was before Lee’s controversial Go Set a Watchman—written prior to Mockingbird and featuring many of the same characters, but set in its future—hit the stands last summer to mixed reviews. Which makes this new development all the more intriguing, especially when you take into account that Lee, now 89, is well known for keeping a low profile (not J.D. Salinger low, he was reclusive and litigious; she’s introverted and private), but close.
For the record, this will not be the first stage adaption of Mockingbird: Christopher Sergel’s version, sanctioned by Lee, debuted in 1991 at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse, and is revived annually in Lee’s hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. The Oscar-winning film starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch was adapted for the screen by Oscar-winning screenwriter Horton Foote.
Frozen on Broadway
Disney lovers will want to set their calendars for Spring of 2018 so they’re among the first to score tickets for the company’s newest animated film-to-Broadway musical event: Frozen. Sitting in the director’s seat will be Tony-nominee Alex Timbers (Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson, Peter and the Starcatcher, and Rocky the Musical), while Peter Darling (Matilda) has signed on as choreographer.
And while it may be some time before a cast is announced, the balance of the creative team’s building blocks are already pretty much in place. Not surprisingly, a few film alumni are on board: Jennifer Lee as book writer and Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, who landed the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the film’s “Let It Go,” will be composing the score. [The duo’s musical credits aren’t too shabby, either: The Book of Mormon and Avenue Q.]
The movie release of Frozen—2014’s Oscar winner for Best Animated Film—premiered November 27th, 2013, and starred Broadway veterans Idina Menzel (Wicked: Tony Award), Jonathan Groff, and Santino Fonatana. To date, it is the highest grossing animated film of all time, which bodes very well indeed for a long and healthy Broadway shelf life.