Rhys Ifans to play Atticus Finch In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird at the Gielgud Theatre
Casting news
RHYS Ifans is to play the iconic role of Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird, the new play by Aaron Sorkin based on Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
Directed by Bartlett Sher, it opens at the Gielgud Theatre on June 11, 2020, following preview performances from May 21.
Rhys Ifans’ theatre credits include a critically acclaimed performance in On Bear Ridge (Royal Court Theatre), Exit the King (National Theatre) and A Christmas Carol (as Scrooge) and King Lear (The Old Vic).
Further stage credits include Don Juan in Soho, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Badfinger (Donmar Warehouse), Volpone, Under Milk Wood (National Theatre), Beautiful Thing (Duke of York’s Theatre), Thyestes (Royal Court Theatre) and Poison Pen (Royal Exchange Theatre).
His film credits include Notting Hill, Dominion, Official Secrets, Snowden, Under Milk Wood, Len and Company, The Five-Year Engagement, Serena, Another Me, The Amazing Spider Man, Anonymous, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Greenberg, The Boat That Rocked, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Hannibal Rising: Once Upon A Time in the Midlands, Human Nature, Hotel, The Shipping News and The Replacement.
He is soon to appear in the historical comedy drama Misbehaviour and as Rasputin in Kingsman: The Great Game.
Bartlett Sher is the multi-award-winning Director of the Lincoln Center Theater in New York, a post he has held for over a decade. His critically acclaimed stage productions include the Tony Award-winning South Pacific and Oslo, My Fair Lady and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. He has also worked extensively in opera, staging productions at English National Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Seattle Opera and New York City Opera.
Aaron Sorkin is a celebrated writer, producer and director known for his multi-award-winning work across stage and screen. He is probably best known as the creator and screenwriter of the Emmy Award-winning hit TV series The West Wing and films such as Steve Jobs and The Social Network for which he received an Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and Writer’s Guild Award for best screenplay.
Sorkin is the writer-creator of The Newsroom and the Academy Award-winning 1992 film A Few Good Men, which he adapted from his 1989 Broadway play. His other credits as a playwright include Making Movies and The Farnsworth Invention.
Harper Lee’s enduring story of racial injustice and childhood innocence has sold more than 45 million copies worldwide. 2020 will mark the 60th anniversary of its publication.
Set in Alabama in 1934, To Kill A Mockingbird centres on one of the most venerated characters in American literature, the small-town lawyer Atticus Finch. The cast of characters includes Atticus’s daughter Scout, her brother Jem, their housekeeper and caretaker Calpurnia, their visiting friend Dill, a mysterious neighbour the reclusive Arthur “Boo” Radley, and the other indelible residents of Maycomb, Alabama.
To Kill A Mockingbird, celebrating one year on Broadway last month, has not played to a single empty seat and holds the benchmark of having become the most successful American play in Broadway history. A national tour of the United States opens at The Kennedy Center in Washington DC in August 2020.
To Kill A Mockingbird is designed by Miriam Buether, with costumes by Ann Roth, lighting by Jennifer Tipton, sound by Scott Lehrer and an original score by Adam Guettel.
Tickets go on general sale from 10am on Friday, December 6, 2019.
Sign up at www.tokillamockingbird.co.uk for updates and priority access to tickets. The Box Office number is 0844 482 5130.
To Kill A Mockingbird is partnering with TodayTix for the All Rise Access initiative where over 500 tickets a week will be available at £15. Details will be announced in 2020.
Image: Rhys Ifans. © Rankin.