To Kill a Mockingbird Finds Power and Grace Through Empathy

By K. Michael Moore
photos by Len Struttman

the children watch Atticus (Scot Hughes) at work

Cedar Rapids - I have a confession to make. I read To Kill a Mockingbird in high school and I paid it very little mind. Perhaps you are the same. For me, back then, Harper Lee’s carefully crafted morality tale, her poignant and innocent translation of the ugliness – and the greatness – inside us all, slipped past my adolescent mind in lieu of thoughts of girls, homework, a crappy after-school job. Bad me. Fortunately, Theatre Cedar Rapids has given me another chance with its current stage production of Lee’s classic.

Mockingbird is set in the Deep South during the Depression. Events of major import occur, and, as an audience, we see them and process them through the bifocal lens of young Scout (Zoey Akers) as she learns of them, and, simultaneously, through the reminiscent voice of Scout as an adult (Jean Louise Finch, played by Marty Norton), who serves as the piece’s narrator, weaving in and out of scenes, smoothly moving us forward in a story that is at once a coming of age tale and a social morality tale. As Scout, her brother Jem (Jaden Henley), and their oddball buddy Dill (Augie Charipar) play, scuffle, and trick their way through the story, they stumble in and out of people’s lives, coming face-to-face with issues such as poverty, racism, mental illness, addiction, and mob mentality, to name but a few.

To Kill a Mockingbird Cast

Cedar Rapids - TCR has announced the cast for its upcoming production of To Kill a Mockingbird. The show opens March 21.