[NEohioPAL] ACT performs To Kill a Mockingbird

[ACT Business Manager]

Aurora Community Theatre  

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 20, 2011

Contact: 

Christine Patronik-Holder

330-562-1818

 

Family, Fairness & Truth

To Kill a mockingbird

Opens ACT 52nd Season on Oct. 28

 

AURORA, OHIO ---- To Kill a Mockingbird opens Aurora Community Theatre's 52nd season at 8 p.m.
Friday, Oct. 28 continuing on Fridays and Saturdays through Nov. 19 on the Wells Main Stage of the
Aurora Center for the Performing Arts, 115 E. Pioneer Trail.

 

Kate Tonti directs this stirring American classic by Christopher Sergel, adapted from the Pulitzer
Prize winning novel by Harper Lee.

 

To Kill a Mockingbird explores the power of family and the pursuit of justice with wisdom, wit and
warmth. Set in a sleepy 1930s Southern town, the play tells the story of the widower, attorney
Atticus Finch, who undertakes the unpopular defense of a wrongly accused young black father, Tom
Robinson. 

 

Patient and committed to justice in the face of community prejudice, Atticus instills in his
children the traditional family values of integrity, courage, responsibility for one's actions and
respect for human dignity.

 

Roland Moore takes on the role of Atticus Finch with Eve Regelbrugge as his daughter, Jean Louise
"Scout" Finch, Daniel Sovich his son, Jeremy "Jem" Finch with Ian Payne as the children's friend
Charles Baker "Dill" Harris. Elliott Hooper plays the beleaguered Tom Robinson. Sharon Brandon plays
the Finch family housekeeper, Calpurnia, and Sue Cohen is the kindly neighbor across the road,
Maudie Atkinson. Don "Arbie" Arbuckle plays Arthur "Boo" Radley.

 

The play also features Phyllis Grumney (Mrs. Dubose), Claudia Lillibridge (Stephanie Crawford), Tim
Walsh (Horace Gilmer), Jerry Schaber (Walter Cunningham), Andrea Galbraith (Mayella Ewell), Michael
Pitt (Bob Ewell), Andrew Frawley (Judge Taylor), James Polk (Reverend Sykes), Mark Moore (Heck
Tate).

 

Marianne S. Paul is the producer, with David Thorndike, assistant producer. Meredith Simmons takes
the lead on costumes. Paul Chechak is in charge of set construction. Barbara Trueman and Jean
Arbuckle co-chair set decoration. Kent Ramsay and Jean Myers will serve as stage managers. Greg
Fetzer designed the lighting and Jacob Payne will run the lighting board. Dorothy Edwards will
manage front-of-house duties with help from Alice and John Schmitt. Vicki Rizzo Prato will take
charge of hospitality. Scott Pease is the show's photographer and Marc C. Howard serves as board
liaison.

 

Tonti, who makes her ACT directorial debut with To Kill a Mockingbird,  writes in her program notes:
"I want to keep this amazing story alive because it is worth telling and knowing....for our
generation and those that follow. There is a time in each of our lives when we are a mockingbird -
with song to sing and a story to tell - but only if someone is willing to listen." 

 

Published in 1960, the novel To Kill a MOCKINGBIRD became instantly successful amid significant
social changes in the South. It was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1961. An international best seller,
the book was adapted into the 1962 movie 

 

Memorable Atticus Finch quotations from To Kill a MOCKINGBIRD summarize the play's key themes of
justice, fairness understanding the good in every person.   

 

"But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal - there is one human
institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein,
and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It
can be the Supreme Court of the United States of the humblest J.P. court in the land, or this
honorable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in
this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal."
Atticus Finch while defending Tom Robinson.

 

"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens,
don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a
sin to kill a mockingbird." Atticus Finch.

 

Aurora Community Theatre is located at 115 E. Pioneer Trail, near the intersection of SR 43 and 306,
at the gazebo, in the center of Aurora. ACT extends appreciation to The Denise G. & Norman E. Wells,
Jr. Family Foundation for their generous underwriting of the Wells Main Stage. 

 

Tickets at $16 for adults, $11 for youth 18 and under, are available online, including seat
selection, at www.auroracommmunitytheatre.com, or call the box office at 330-562-1818. Group
discounts are also available by calling the box office.

 

To Kill a Mockingbird is presented by special arrangement with Dramatic Publishing Company. 

###

 

ACT, celebrating 52 successful seasons in 2011-12, annually presents three regular season shows, a
summer stock production plus two children's summer workshops, reaching an annual audience of nearly
7,000. ACT showcases the region's top actors, musicians, costume and set designers, construction,
lighting, sound and backstage crews -- all of whom generously donate their time and talent. 

region's top actors, musicians, costume and set designers, construction, lighting, sound and
backstage crews -- all of whom generously donate their time and talent. 

 

 

----------------

Christine Patronik-Holder
Business and Marketing Manager
Aurora Community Theatre
PO Box 9 (mailing address)
115 E Pioneer Trail (theatre address)
Aurora, Ohio 44202
330-562-1818



 

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