Associated Press
By Jay Reeves
Associated Press
MONROEVILLE, Ala. — Each spring when the azaleas bloom, attorney Atticus Finch, daughter Scout and other characters from “To Kill a Mockingbird” come to life on the courthouse lawn in the Alabama hometown of author Harper Lee, who will release a sequel to her classic novel in July.
Yet the play, now in its 26th season, may eventually be coming to an end.
Townspeople, all volunteers largely without theater experience, join together annually to perform a stage version of Lee’s story of racial injustice in the Deep South. The play opens outside the courthouse and ends in the same courtroom that was a set model for the Hollywood version of the book.
Organizers haven’t been able to obtain rights to produce the play beyond 2015, records show, and a person involved in the delay is the same person who came under scrutiny after discovering “Watchman” and alerting a publisher: Lee’s attorney Tonja Carter.
Probate Judge Greg Norris in Monroe County is working with Carter to obtain permission to stage “Mockingbird” in 2016.
Tonja Carter’s husband has been appointed to the board that oversees the play, but the future of the production is in “limbo,” according to minutes from a March meeting of directors of the Monroe County Heritage Museum. The museum puts on the play each year.
Norris declined comment on specifics of the talks Tuesday, saying only that he’s hopeful the play will continue in the downtown amphitheater where it’s currently staged.
“We want the play for our community. It makes people proud,” Norris told The Associated Press.
Carter, who has handled business affairs for the famously private author for several years, didn’t return a message seeking comment. Neither did the president of the Illinois-based Dramatic Publishing Co., which licenses the play.
But friction isn’t anything new between Lee and the museum, located in the old Monroe County Courthouse where the play is put on each year.
In 2013, Lee sued the museum over “Mockingbird” souvenirs sold in its store after seeking a federal trademark for the title of her book when it is used on clothing. The suit came after the museum opposed the application, saying souvenir sales were vital to its operation.
The legal dispute was settled, but news of the unexpected follow-up novel by Lee once again put a spotlight on Monroeville’s most famous resident.
Questions arose among some friends and longtime acquaintances about whether the 88-year-old author — who hadn’t previously revealed plans to publish a second book and now lives in an assisted living center — was competent to make the decision to release “Watchman,” which was written in the 1950s before “Mockingbird.”
The upcoming book is described as being set 20 years after Finch — based upon Lee’s attorney father — defended a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman in Maycomb, a fictional town based upon Monroeville. In “Watchman,” Finch’s daughter Scout returns home to her childhood home as an adult.
The state of Alabama has closed an investigation into possible elder abuse involving Lee, but the author has yet to comment publicly aside from statements released by Carter or publisher HarperCollins. Lee has suffered a stroke and is nearly deaf; friends say she reads with large magnifier.
