Mockingbird to fly with classic in Moline

During the fleetingly brief 22 months that Mockingbird on Main operated in downtown Davenport, it didn’t stage the classic story for which the theater was named.

Well, nearly a year after the Mockingbird was forced to leave its home (320 Main St.), on the ground floor of the building that collapsed (May 28, 2023), the itinerant company will bring “To Kill a Mockingbird” to Moline’s Black Box Theatre.

Performances will be May 16, 17, 18 and 23, 24 and 25 at 8 p.m. and May 19 and May 26 at 2 p.m. at The Black Box, 1623 5^th Ave., Moline. Auditions for the play will be held at Black Box on Saturday, Feb. 24 at 11 a.m.

Based on the 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee, Christopher Sergel’s stage version debuted in 1991 at Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey just two years before his death in 1993.

The story (made into the iconic 1962 film starring Gregory Peck) is set in a sleepy Alabama town in the midst of the Great Depression, where Scout and her brother, Jem, live with their widowed father, Atticus Finch.

The play immerses us in a simpler time as the children play outside in the summer, act out stories and muse about their mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley, according to a synopsis. The facade of the seemingly peaceful town begins to crack when a young black man is accused of a terrible crime.

Driven by an unshakable moral conviction, lawyer Atticus defends the man in a trial that sends violent waves through the community. Timeless and lingering, this hard-hitting work explores prejudice, compassion and the courage to do what is right, the synopsis says.

The novel was famously adapted by TV and film writer Aaron Sorkin for his 2018 Broadway version. The Sorkin adaptation is not available for licensing.

“Sergel’s adaptation is more faithful to the book in structure and focus whereas Sorkin has thrown out the original flow and created a piece that is essentially a memory play,” Mockingbird on Main co-owner Tristan Tapscott said recently. “For example, Sorkin’s piece begins with the trial and flashes back to various moments and Sergel’s piece doesn’t hit the trial until later in the show.

Neither Tapscott nor his wife (and Mockingbird co-owner) Savannah Bay Strandin have seen either stage version.

“It’s an impactful piece and I’m surprised it’s never crossed my radar,” he said. “We live in a world that continues to grapple with racial injustice, inequality, division. Unfortunately, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ still hits all these years later. The storytelling is simple, frank, a little complicated and a little funny. It’s life, you know? It’s a depiction of life at a certain time through the eyes of those that don’t lie — and more importantly – feel love without borders: children.”

To build a Mockingbird

Tapscott loved the book so much that he named his daughter Harper Leigh, who will turn 10 in March, and then he and Strandin turned their passion for the story into the name of their new cabaret-style theater, which opened July 29, 2021.

“We live in an increasingly divided world, and most of us — unfortunately – hold some kind of prejudice,” Tapscott said recently. “They aren’t always major — they can be subtle — just look around at our political and social environments.”

“The truth is, we all have much more in common than we think,” he said. “ ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is about so much — and it’s so important to recalibrate and remember how far we have come and how far we still have to go.

“We began The Mockingbird with a vision to entertain but also support diversity on the local stage and to enact change when we could,” Tapscott said. “We don’t have money but we have art and that can help change the world, too.”

He didn’t perform in any Mockingbird shows until after the building collapse, when the Mockingbird brought a production of the Tennessee Williams classic “Glass Menagerie” to Black Hawk College in Moline, in July 2023. Tapscott embodied the narrator, autobiographical role of Tom.

The Mockingbird next moved to Moline’s Black Box in August for the rollicking musical revue “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” featuring many classic Americana singalongs.

A hard search for new home

Tapscott and Strandin (who are veteran Circa ’21 actors) have unsuccessfully searched for another permanent home for its phoenix rising from the ashes.

“What’s not to love about Lora and The Black Box? She really took us in last summer — me, personally as an artist during ‘Hello, Dolly’ shortly after the building collapse,” he recalled of Black Box artistic director Lora Adams. “I was working on that show when it all happened and was saving me in a lot of ways.

“She then took us in for ‘Big Rock Candy Mountain’ and helped us keep the Mockingbird name alive. She’s always been supportive and helpful and a true saint to the arts community in the Quad Cities,” Tapscott said.

“We had something so unique and we created a space that was distinctly ours,” Strandin said of Davenport’s sophisticated, cozy Mockingbird, with just 40-seat capacity at tables. “It had a certain vibe that we haven’t been able to find in other venues. The other tougher aspect is the cost; the market is not budget friendly, especially when you consider the infrastructure that would need to be built out to house a theatrical operation.

“We had a fantastic deal at 324 N. Main — and now we may know why — but it’s not feasible with the outrageous rates we are finding elsewhere,” she said of unaffordable rent/lease options for other options.

Strandin noted there are talks behind the scenes about finding another building that would benefit not only Mockingbird, but possibly other local theater companies without a home – such as the former QC Theatre Workshop and Haus of Ruckus – “but those plans are in the extremely early stages and could easily fall apart,” she said.

“Know this…if the stars align, the entire arts community will be forever changed” Strandin said.

The timing of the new “To Kill a Mockingbird” is very significant.

“As we approach the year anniversary of the collapse, it’s important to remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird,” Strandin said, quoting a famous line Atticus delivers in the story, representing the death of innocence, or putting to death an innocent man.

In the story, Lee has Miss Maudie say to Scout: “Your father’s right,” she said. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy…but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

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