Final

The play To Kill a Mockingbird was adapted by Christopher Sergel from Harper Lee’s novel. The story is said to be inspired by Lee’s own childhood set in 1935 in her small hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, and the character of Dill is based on a fellow famous neighbor Truman Capote, the author of In Cold Blood. Since the debut of the play in 1990 Monroeville, which now labels itself “The Literary Capital of Alabama”, it has run annually with locals making up the entire cast.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a coming-of-age story of Scout Finch and her brother, Jem, in 1930's Alabama. Through their neighborhood mischief and the example of their father, they grow to understand that the world isn't always fair and that prejudice is a very real aspect of their world no matter how subtle it seems.
There are many themes that are embedded within this production. The most powerful is that of how unjust racism is. Knowing that this show is based on a real person’s childhood, illustrates just how common the threat of racial discrimination was in the 1930’s. Segregation, as well as mistreatment was extremely universal across the southern states. Even during this time of The Great Depression, minorities had it much worse than even those whites struggling during this rough economic time. Being true to the language of the time, there are uses of racial slurs in this production that are not intended to offend anyone, but to just be historically accurate. A very public case of racism that closely relates to this show was The Scottsboro Boys Trials in Alabama. The Scottsboro Case began in April of 1931 with a brawl between whites and blacks riding a freight train through northern Alabama. When Jackson County officials stopped the train near Scottsboro, two white women— Victoria Price and Ruby Bates—accused nine black teenagers of raping them. A Scottsboro jury quickly convicted eight of the nine boys and sentenced them to death. In a 1933 retrial, Ruby Bates recanted her accusation, and new evidence strongly contradicted Victoria Price. The jury still convicted. Not for thirteen years, however, did Alabama release the last of the Scottsboro defendants.
To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the midst of the Great Depression. The 1930's were a time of great economic struggle in America. The Great Depression is said to have been caused by a sudden collapse of the stock market on November 29th, 1929, this day is also referred to as Black Tuesday. It was common for people to work as much as they could find work and be creative in paying debts, such as paying with crops like Mr. Cunningham does. Education also was effected by the depression. Many people pulled their children out of school to work or the schools lost a lot of funding, so many people were not educated properly during this time. Jem and Scout were lucky in ways that some kids were not, because Atticus was a lawyer which provided more for his family than most other’s had. The Finch family was not rich by any means, but did not have to worry about going hungry. Mayella Ewell, although she was a teenager, had to worry about where food came from and if there would be clothing to wear if something happened to her’s.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic that will be produced over and over throughout the country and teaches every generation about our past and how far we have come from it. Hopefully everyone can take something away from this traditional story of life in the 1930’s Alabama.