A Time To Kill: Tom Skerritt completes cast

Emmy Award-winning actor Tom Skerritt ("Picket Fences") will make his Broadway debut playing 'Lucien Wilbanks,' the mentor to protagonist 'Jake Brigance,' in Rupert Holmes' stage adaptation of A Time to Kill, John Grisham's best-selling novel.

Skerritt is perhaps best known for his Emmy Award winning performance on the CBS drama series "Picket Fences." He made his feature film debut in "War Hunt" and went on to memorably star in films such as" M*A*S*H," "The Turning Point," "Alien," "A River Runs Through It," "Steel Magnolias," "Top Gun" and "Contact," among many others, and will next be seen in the independent film "Field of Lost Shoes" as 'Ulysses S. Grant'. For television, he has appeared on "Brothers & Sisters," "Leverage," and "Cheers," to name but a few. For theater, he has appeared in Los Angeles and Seattle productions of the play 'Love Letters' and as the Stage Manager in the Intiman Theatre production of 'Our Town' directed by Bartlett Sher.

Producers Daryl Roth and Eva Price said,

We are so thrilled to welcome the enormously gifted Tom Skerritt to this production of A Time to Kill. His uncanny mixture of warmth, command and intelligence have been on display throughout his remarkable, decades-spanning career, and will undoubtedly bring our Lucien Wilbanks to vivid life on Broadway this fall.

Skerritt joins the previously announced 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) and Ashley Williams (Ellen Roark).

A Time to Kill opens at the John Golden Theatre on 20 Oct 2013, following previews from 28 Sep 2013, and is currently booking through to 02 Mar 2014.

This new Broadway play, to be 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 design team for A Time to Kill will feature 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.

Tom Skerritt