'To Kill a Mockingbird' Broadway Return Canceled, Playwright Aaron Sorkin Blames Disgraced Producer Scott Rudin
29.07.2022 - 23:25
/ justjared.com
The acclaimed play To Kill a Mockingbird will no longer be returning to Broadway and the show’s playwright Aaron Sorkin is placing blame on disgraced producer Scott Rudin.
The show was one of the most successful plays of all time after it opened in 2018 and it returned to Broadway in Fall 2021 with original star Jeff Daniels.
After Jeff left the play on January 2, Broadway was hit by the resurgent pandemic and the producers made the decision to temporarily close the show on January 16. The original plan to reopen the play on June 1 never happened and now the show will not return at all.
Click inside to find out what happened…
Rudin was the original lead producer of the play, but he stepped back from his producing duties amid allegations about his behavior.
The New York Times reports that Rudin continues to control the rights to the stage adaptation and he decided to halt the plans to reopen the show.
“At the last moment, Scott reinserted himself as producer and for reasons which are, frankly, incomprehensible to us both, he stopped the play from reopening,” Sorkin and director Bartlett Sher wrote in an email to the cast and crew.
Rudin wrote in an email, “The reason I opted not to bring back TKAM has to do with my lack of confidence in the climate for plays next winter. I do not believe that a remount of Mockingbird would have been competitive in the marketplace.” He added, “It’s too risky and the downside is too great. I’m sorry you’re disappointed. It’s the right decision for the long life of the show.”
Sorkin and Sher said they “mourn the loss of all the jobs — onstage, backstage, and front of house — that just disappeared.”
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