A Time To Kill to close on 17 Nov 2013

The Broadway premiere of Rupert Holmes' stage adaptation of John Grisham's best-selling novel A Time to Kill, has posted early closing notices and will play its final performance on 17 Nov 2013. When the show closes it will have played 23 previews and 33 regular performances.

A Time to Kill opened at the John Golden Theatre on 20 Oct 2013, following previews from 28 Sep 2013. The play had been selling tickets through to 02 Mar 2014.

Producers Roth and Price said,

We are enormously proud to have brought John Grisham's A Time to Kill to Broadway with an incredible creative team and an extraordinary ensemble of actors. We would like to thank Rupert Holmes, Ethan McSweeny, and the entire company of our production for-as we all witnessed night after night-thrilling our audiences with a compelling, essential story about justice and morality. We are extremely happy with the responses and reactions from our audiences.
The play opened on Broadway to mostly poor reviews: Never succeeds in generating much steam (New York Times); Paint-by-numbers dramatization (New York Daily News); Remains flat, lacking the minimum of suspense (New York Post); Plodding and suspense-less (The Record).

The show had also been struggling at the box office since its opening, and last week its house capacity was at only 55%.

This new Broadway play, directed by Ethan McSweeny, is the first-ever John Grisham property to be adapted for the stage. A Time to Kill, a courtroom drama, tells the story of a young, idealistic lawyer, Jack Brigance (Arcelus), defending a black man, Carl Lee Hailey (John Douglas Thompson), for taking the law into his own hands following an unspeakable crime committed against his young daughter. Their small Mississippi town is thrown into upheaval, and Jake finds himself arguing against the formidable district attorney, Rufus Buckley, and under attack from both sides of a racially divided city.

The cast features Sebastian Arcelus (Jack Brigance), John Douglas Thompson (Carl Lee Hailey), Fred Dalton Thompson (Judge Noose), Dashiell Eaves (Pete Willard/DR Musgrove), J.R. Horne (Mr. Pate), Chike Johnson (Ozzie Walls), Patrick Page (Rufus Buckley), Tonya Pinkins (Gwen Hailey), John Procaccino (Drew Tyndale/WT Bass), Tijuana Ricks (Court Reporter), Lee Sellars (Cobb/Rhodeheaver/Grist), Tom Skerritt (Lucien Wilbanks) and Ashley Williams (Ellen Roark).

The design team for A Time to Kill features scenic design by James Noone, costume design by David Woolard, lighting design by Jeff Croiter, sound design by Lindsay Jones and projection design by Jeff Sugg.

Fred Dalton Thompson (Judge Noose), John Douglas Thompson (Carl Lee Hailey) and Sebastian Arcelus (Jack Brigance) More production photos

Originally published on

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