Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is coming to Sag Harbor. Bay Street Theater will stage the story from November 9 through November 29 as this year's Literature Live! production, the theater's annual fall program that puts a classroom classic on a professional stage and lets students see it at no charge.

The production lands in the middle of a milestone season: Bay Street is marking 35 years of performances on the Sag Harbor waterfront.

The program that fills the house with students

Literature Live! is the piece of Bay Street's year built for schools. Each fall the theater mounts a full production of a book that students are reading in English class, then opens the house to school groups with free admission, funded by community donations. By the theater's own count, the program has served nearly 50,000 students since it began, and a fundraising campaign is underway to cover this year's student performances.

The choice of title brings the program back to familiar ground. Bay Street staged To Kill a Mockingbird for Literature Live! in 2011, and the novel has remained one of the most widely assigned books in American classrooms in the years since.

The story on stage

Set in Alabama in 1934, To Kill a Mockingbird follows Scout Finch and her brother Jem as their father, the small-town lawyer Atticus Finch, defends a Black man falsely accused of a crime. The theater describes the production as an exploration of justice, prejudice, empathy and courage, told through the eyes of a child watching her town respond to injustice.

Public performances run alongside the student shows, so the production is not only a field trip: evening and weekend audiences can buy tickets the way they would for any Bay Street mainstage run.

How to go

To Kill a Mockingbird runs November 9 through 29 at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. Tickets for public performances are available through the theater's website. Schools interested in bringing a class can call the theater at 631-725-0818, extension 107, or email the education department to reserve student seats.

The production joins a fall calendar that includes the theater's Halloween programming on October 31, with spooky story readings in the afternoon and The Rocky Horror Picture Show at night.

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