TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD Comes to the Fisher Theatre in March

Emmy Award®-winning actor Richard Thomas is confirmed to star as Atticus Finch for the complete third touring season of the First National Tour of the history-making production of To Kill a Mockingbird, including the Detroit engagement at the Fisher Theatre March 5 – 17. Academy Award® winner Aaron Sorkin’s new play, directed by Tony Award® winner Bartlett Sher and based on Harper Lee’s classic novel, is currently on a multi-year national tour across North America. Tickets for To Kill a Mockingbird go on sale at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, November 17. 

BIOGRAPHY:

Richard Thomas (Atticus Finch) (he/him). Broadway/Off-Broadway: The Little Foxes (Tony nom.), You Can’t Take It with You, Race, Democracy, Incident at Vichy, The Stendhal Syndrome (Lucille Lortel Award), A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, An Enemy of the People, Tiny Alice, The Front Page, The Fifth of July, innumerable Shakespeare productions, and his professional debut at 7 years old in Sunrise at Campobello on Broadway. National tours: The Humans (Elliot Norton Award) and Twelve Angry Men. Thomas is an Emmy Award-winning actor for his performance in the iconic series The Waltons. Film: Last Summer; Red Sky at Morning; September 30, 1955; Wonder Boys; Taking Woodstock; The Unforgivable. TV: The Americans, Billions, Tell Me Your Secrets and the Netflix series Ozark.

Since its tour launch in March 2022, the First National Tour of To Kill a Mockingbird has set a record as the highest-grossing play ever to tour North America. It has played more than 500 performances in 44 cities, seen by more than 1 million theatergoers (1,149,658 as of August 27, 2023) and hailed as “A must-see” (Northwest Herald, Chicago), “The most powerful telling of this story you’ll ever experience” (St. Paul Pioneer-Press) and “Amazing – a perfect 10!” (KOA News Radio, Denver).

To Kill a Mockingbird holds the record as the highest-grossing American play in Broadway history. It began performances on November 1, 2018, at the Shubert Theatre and played to sold-out houses until the Broadway shutdown in March 2020. On February 26, 2020, To Kill a Mockingbird became the first-ever Broadway play to perform at New York’s Madison Square Garden, in front of approximately 18,000 New York City public school students, also marking the largest attendance at a single performance of a play ever in world theater. The production resumed performances on October 5, 2021 and concluded its run at the Shubert Theatre on January 16, 2022. On May 20, 2023, To Kill a Mockingbird concluded its run on London’s West End, playing for more than a year to packed houses at the Gielgud Theatre. 

Set in Alabama in 1934, Harper Lee’s enduring story of racial injustice and childhood innocence centers on one of the most venerated characters in American literature, 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, and a mysterious neighbor, the reclusive Arthur “Boo” Radley. The other indelible residents of Maycomb, Alabama, are Bob Ewell, Tom Robinson, prosecutor Horace Gilmer, Judge Taylor and Mayella Ewell. 

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. Musical direction is by Kimberly Grigsby, hair & wig design by Campbell Young Associates, casting by The Telsey Office, and design adaptation and supervision by Edward Pierce. The national tour is produced by Barry Diller.