This new stage adaptation by past Tony Award®-winner Rupert Holmes of the popular John Grisham courtroom drama tells the emotionally charged, now-iconic story of a young, idealistic lawyer, Jake Brigance (Sebastian 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 (Patrick Page), and under attack from both sides of a racially divided city. This drama is a thrilling courtroom battle where the true nature of what is right and what is moral are called into question. The ensemble also features Fred Dalton Thompson and past Tony Award-winner Tonya Pinkins.
A Time to Kill is Grisham’s first novel, originally published in 1989. A 1996 film version starred Matthew McConaughey and Samuel L. Jackson. This stage adaptation by Rupert Holmes (The Mystery of Edwin Drood) premiered at the Arena Stage in Washington, DC in 2011.