Can you perform 'To Kill a Mockingbird' in 2024?
The Carlisle Theatre's production of "To Kill a Mockingbird" was risky. A team of experts from Dickinson and the local community provided context and guidance for a nuanced, powerful performance. Photo courtesy of Myers Media.
Dickinson experts consult on production of controversial play
by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson
What can a classic play based on a much-banned 64-year-old novel tell us about the fight for social justice in 2024? Who gets to tell that story, and how should they tell it—if it should be told at all?
These questions swirled around the recent Carlisle Theatre production of To Kill a Mockingbird. A team of Dickinson advisors and other community leaders partnered with the play’s directors to bring this classic work into the 21st century in an authentic and powerful way.
Controversial classic
The play tells the story of a white lawyer's defense of an innocent Black man, as seen through the eyes of the lawyer's daughter. Photo by Myers Media.
Based on the 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee and dramatized by Christopher Sergel, To Kill a Mockingbird centers on a white lawyer, Atticus Finch, and his defense of Tom Robinson, a Black man falsely accused of rape. It takes place in the segregated Deep South of the 1930s.
While long acclaimed as a call for empathy and support for the civil rights movement—which was underway when it was written—To Kill a Mockingbird is today considered a controversial work. The themes remain vital and relevant, but the approach—depicting the Black struggle for justice through the lens of white empathy—is, for many Americans in 2024, uncomfortable at best. And because it tackles complex and charged issues and includes liberal use of the “N-word," the novel is currently banned in some U.S. schools and libraries.
“So this play was risky for the Carlisle Theatre and the Players on High theatre group,” says Yvette Davis, the director of Dickinson's Popel Shaw Center for Race & Ethnicity, who served as a lead consultant and portrayed Calpurnia in the production. “They requested assistance with navigating the racism, misogyny, neurodivergence, ableism and injustice the play depicts.”
Davis and Dickinson’s Keola Simpson (assistant professor of theatre), Naaja Rogers (visiting professor of Africana studies) and Marni Jones (dean and executive director, Access & Disability Services) joined with local leaders Safronia Perry (Carlisle Borough Council) and TaWanda Stallworth (Penn State Dickinson Law) to help guide the way.
Linguistic minefields
Throughout the rehearsal period, weekly discussions helped cast members grapple with the historic and contemporary issues at hand. Davis led a discussion of the historical and current uses of the “N-word,” which cast members were hesitant to articulate while reciting their lines.
The 1960 classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird and its adaptation for the stage were long hailed as calls for empathy for the Black struggle for justice. Today, they are controversial. Photo by Myers Media.
“Every word is important in the script, and in this play especially, language shows power,” says Hadley D’Esopo ’23, a Carlisle native and recent Dickinson grad who portrayed Robinson’s accuser, Mayella. “Yvette explained the difficult, deep history of that word in a way that even the youngest children in the cast could understand and answered any questions anyone had.”
Uplifting Black voices
The Dickinson and local consultants also urged the cast to consider the importance of uplifting Black experiences and perspectives within this production—most critically, that of Robinson, the accused and innocent man on trial. To center those experiences—and connect the fictional, pre-civil rights story with true-life issues of today—they proposed a powerful curtain call, highlighting the names of people of color who were murdered by police and other institutions.
The play ended with a James Baldwin quote: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” “We received standing ovations for six of the seven performances,” Davis says.
Directors within Dickinson’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion division paid for 37 Dickinson students to see and discuss the play. And all audience members were invited to take part in community discussions. That included a free educational series at Carlisle’s Second Presbyterian Church and talks at Penn State Dickinson Law.
D’Esopo is grateful to have been a part of the production. “As an actor, I loved this experience because it challenged me in ways I hadn't been challenged before,” she says.
"This is what theatre is for—we hold up a mirror to society, launch discourse and amplify voices that are being drowned out, censored or buried," Simpson explains. "Sometimes we have to have tough conversations with each other. If we do our jobs right, the talking doesn't end once we leave the theatre."
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Published November 14, 2024