Mock Trial A Collaboration Of Local

And Professional Talents

By Nancy K. Crevier

“There is a difference between seeing a live show and seeing a movie made a long time ago,” said Doug MacHugh. Mr MacHugh, a resident of Newtown and acting instructor at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., is the director of the To Kill A Mockingbird mock trial scheduled for Saturday, April 28, at the Newtown Meeting House. He hopes that the excitement he feels about bringing to life the courtroom drama of Harper Lee’s 1962 book will rub off on townspeople. “Going to a live show is pretty exciting,” he said.

The mock trial is the final event of the NewtownREADS program that began March 2 with the distribution of 2,000 free copies of To Kill A Mockingbird, the novel selected for the townwide reading extravaganza and funded by the Newtown Friends of the C.H. Booth Library.

“We are thrilled that Doug has agreed to direct this play,” said librarian Kim Weber. “We really do feel very lucky to have his talent.”

The greater part of his time is spent teaching his 87 Sarah Lawrence drama students, but Mr MacHugh is also the director for It Had To Be You, which will open at the Mint Space Theater in Manhattan in July.

He is happy to be a part of the Newtown production, he said, as he has developed a good relationship with the local library since moving to Newtown in 1995. “The librarians were actually the first people I met when we moved here,” he said.

The production will focus on a small but powerful part of the book, the trial of Tom Robinson. “The court scene is the beginning, middle, and end,” Mr MacHugh said, “bookended by the narrator’s part. I’m working on bringing a more realistic approach to the characters, to provide a more human look at them. [The characters] all have something at stake, and this trial taking place in 1935 is the first indication of racial flare-ups. It is Atticus Finch’s job to make it ignite, to make people aware of what is going on,” said Mr MacHugh.

He is equally excited about the mix of cast and crew that will help him to put a different spin on the production. Auditions on Wednesday, March 28, turned up a number of local thespians, but Mr MacHugh has also relied on his theatrical connections to bring in two professional actors, Nathan LeGrand as Atticus Finch and Freedome Bradley, who will play Tom Robinson. One of Mr MacHugh’s students, Sarah Zane Moore, has agreed to play Mayella Ewell and another Sarah Lawrence faculty member will play Bob Ewell. “It’s exciting to mix my worlds,” Mr MacHugh said.

Jean Louise (Scout) Finch narrates the beginning and end of the play, Mr MacHugh explained, and when he heard Julie Stern read, he knew she was perfect for the part. “She is such an eloquent, articulate speaker,” he said. The young Scout will be played by Meagan Davis of Sandy Hook, and the character of Dill will be handled by Reid Hingham of Newtown. Scott Wilkins walked into a book discussion at Mocha and soon found himself offered the part of Reverend Sykes by Mr MacHugh, who was also attending the book talk.

“Bill Lavery — that’s Judge Lavery — is going to be Judge Taylor. I’m very pleased about that,” said Mr MacHugh.

Jem Finch is an important, although nonspeaking part, and when Mr MacHugh laid eyes on Patrick Sullivan, he knew he had found the right young man for the part. “He just sort of fell into our laps,” said Mr MacHugh. “Patrick looks perfect for the part. He’s half grown-up, sort of not quite sure where he’s at yet.”

Patrick would agree that he fell into the part. He was not even at the auditions to try out, he said at a recent interview. “My mom said I had to go along with her. She wanted to be the stenographer,” said Patrick. He is not particularly interested in the world of theater, he said, preferring to play baseball and basketball, as would many 12-year-old boys. “Sports are number one for me,” he said.

But when Patrick came up the stairs of the library with his mother, Mr MacHugh took one look at him and said, “That’s Jem!”

Before he knew it, Patrick was filling out paperwork and taking on the part of Jem Finch. “I’m not really nervous or anything,” he said, even though he has never been on stage before. “I think I mostly just sit in the balcony and react to what’s happening. I think [the character of Jem] and I have the same adventurous attitude,” said Patrick, who has yet to work with Mr MacHugh.

“[Librarian] Kim Weber knows Patrick and me,” said his mother, Mary Lou Sullivan, “so I don’t know if she put a bug in Doug’s ear about Patrick or not before we got there.”

The mock trial, it turns out, will be a family affair for the Sullivans. Not only did Patrick and his mother land parts, but John Sullivan will be Horace Gilmer, the prosecutor.

“To me, culture is number one, it’s a whole family activity,” said Ms Sullivan. “I’m always looking for way to extend literature and fine art into the family.”

Her husband is a former opera singer and theater major, she said, so it was no trouble at all to get him involved in the To Kill A Mockingbird play. “This will be a new experience for Patrick, being in the theater. I think it’s a definite way to show how theater can impact your life.”

Because the play is broken into little segments, Mr MacHugh will be able to coach the various characters separately. “I expect to be rehearsing two days a week in Newtown and maybe three to four days in New York,” he said. Crunch time will come right down to the wire, as it often does in theater production, he said.

“We’ll get into the Meeting House on April 27. Everybody, the cast and the crew, will be there Friday morning for a ‘meet and greet’ and then we’ll rehearse all day and into the evening. Saturday morning, we’ll be at it again, and by the time 2 pm rolls around on Saturday, I expect we’ll have a great show put together,” Mr MacHugh said. “Sherry Paisley, from the Meeting House, has been extremely gracious to us in the use of the space.

“We want all of the [NewtownREADS] events to be successful, so I hope we pack them in,” said Mr MacHugh.

Tickets for the To Kill A Mockingbird mock trial can be purchased at the C.H. Booth Library. Tickets for the 2 pm performance on Saturday, April 28, are $5. The cost for the 7 pm performance is $10, and includes a postperformance sampling of Southern fare. Tickets are limited.