Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

Page Turner

Lost Nation Theater’s latest play is an exercise in imagination — as it should be, since it celebrates literature. Tied in with the Vermont Reads 2011 pick, the stage adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird falls on the 50th anniversary of the book’s Pulitzer Prize award, and opening weekend coincides with author Harper Lee’s 85th birthday. As a metaphor for the ways a reader fleshes out the world introduced in a novel, the set design is composed of “fragments of architectural detail,” notes producing director Kathleen Keenan, and “the rest of it is sort of ‘fuzzed’ away.” The goal of the performance — LNT’s third rendition of the timeless classic — is to inspire people to read the novel, which Keenan says “addresses a lot of issues that are still with us” and is “a great catalyst for conversation.” Onward, to Maycomb, Ala.