Aaron Sorkin's stage adaptation of Harper Lee's 1961 Pulitzer-winning novel "To Kill A Mockingbird" opened at the Shubert Theatre in 2018, and last night the production reached an order of magnitude more viewers than it does in a typical night. Middle and high school students from across the five boroughs of New York City — 18,000 all together — were given free tickets to attend the first Broadway play to be performed at Madison Square Garden.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, First Lady Chirlane McCray and film director Spike Lee all addressed the assembled students.
“Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t be artists. Follow your dreams,” Spike Lee said.
The show explores themes of racial injustice and centers on the trial of a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman.
Ed Harris starred as lawyer Atticus Finch. Actor Taylor Trensh, who appeared in the role of Dill Harris, told the Associated Press:
“It was magical. It felt like what theater used to like be thousands of years ago. It’s something I’ll remember forever.”
For more, read the Associated Press' coverage of the event, here.