Actress brings Detroit lessons to Broadway hit ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

For as long as she can remember, “To Kill a Mockingbird” has loomed large for Celia Keenan-Bolger.

“I remember my mother reading it to me before I could read, and we watched the movie. It was just very much in line with the principles of our household,” says the 40-year-old actress and three-time Tony Award nominee, who grew up in Detroit in a family that prioritized working for social justice.

In her family, the classic 1960 novel by Harper Lee wasn’t only a great piece of literature. It was a tool for building a caring, empathetic approach to life.

On Dec. 13, when the Aaron Sorkin adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird” officially opens at the Shubert Theateron Broadway, she will be playing the role of young Scout Finch.

Film and TV star Jeff Daniels has the lead role of her father, Atticus Finch, the white lawyer in the racist Jim Crow South who defends a black man falsely accused of rape.

Preview performances have been drawing sellout audiences. Advance sales reportedly are running ahead of any other Broadway show this year, with $1 million in tickets sold within 12 hours after a Thanksgiving weekend “60 Minutes” segment featuring Sorkin and Daniels. 

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