New adaptation of Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" on Boston stage offers fresh take on a classic

Six decades after the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel was first published, Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" still resonates. And now, a new adaptation by Aaron Sorkin is on stage at Boston's Huntington Theatre.

"We fought really hard to get this piece," Huntington artistic director Loretta Greco told WBZ.

And she's excited to give Boston audiences the chance to see this version.

"It's still the story you love. It still toggles between the mighty courtroom drama and this rite of passage of the children," Greco said. "But it's not just Scout and Jem and Dill that are making a rite of passage. It's Atticus as well."

Greco thinks Sorkin, the writer of "A Few Good Men" and "The West Wing," was the perfect person to adapt the classic novel.

"He is probably the most idealistic, big-hearted human when it comes to his belief in this country, in democracy, in justice," Greco said.

"He's done some very nuanced things with this beautiful, beloved story," Greco said. "Atticus is no longer the white savior, so he's knocked him off of his pedestal, thank God. And he's joined the throes of flawed humanity with the rest of us."

The piece is framed as a memory. Scout, Jem and Dill appear as adults, then pivot to playing their younger selves.

"Watching these three actors do that in such a fluid and magnificently organic way is such a joy because it's inherently theatrical," Greco told WBZ.

And she thinks it's important to think about Scout's words in the play, as the character examines the judge's instructions to "all rise."

"All rise for me is about that space between the world as it is and the world as we know it can be," Greco said.

You can see Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" at the Huntington Theatre in Boston through Sunday.