Madison Square Garden swapped its hardwood floor for a Broadway set Wednesday as the iconic basketball arena hosted a free performance of the play “To Kill a Mockingbird” for almost 20,000 city students.
City middle and high school students streamed off buses and trains, buzzing with excitement for the afternoon’s entertainment. For some, it was the first chance to see a Broadway show.
“I want to see how my first Broadway play is going to be because I’ve never been,” said Kenny Hiraldo, 14, an 8th-grader at I.S. 339 in the Bronx. “Madison Square Garden is crazy,” he added.
The arena was almost unrecognizable after trading its hard court for an elevated platform dotted with courtroom furniture for the trial at the center of Harper Lee’s iconic 1960 novel about race in the Deep South. The lights over the crowd were set to a dim blue.
Kenny said his English class is in the middle of reading the novel, so the timing of the visit was perfect for him.
New York City high school student Kenny Hiraldo, 14, from IS 339 in the Bronx before a showing of To Kill a Mockingbird at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, NY on February 26, 2020. (Danielle Hyams for New York Daily News)
“I really want to see what happens at the end,” added the teen.
Wednesday’s show is the first time Madison Square Garden hosted a theatrical production. The one-time performance is a partnership between Knicks owner James Dolan and Scott Rudin and Barry Diller, the producers of the Broadway show.
The book was adapted for the stage by renowned screen writer Aaron Sorkin and features Ed Harris in the lead role of Atticus Finch, an Alabama lawyer defending a black man on charges of raping a white woman.
For city teachers, the play was both a chance to get students out of the classroom and a way to pump new life into their lessons on the classic novel still a staple of many eighth and ninth grade English classes.
The play diverges from the novel in some respects by focusing more on the perspectives of black characters. Those differences can make for rich classroom discussions, said middle school English teacher Valerie Lake, who took her eighth grade students to see Wednesday’s performance.
“They love the discussions” about complex topics like racism, Lake said. “We chose to teach ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ knowing there are some problems in it. You have to have those other conversations,” she added.
Seventh-grader Anna Ruess hasn’t yet been assigned the book at her Brooklyn middle school, M.S. 442. But when she learned about the chance to see the play for free, she decided to read it on her own.
“It has a really important message to it,” said the 13-year-old. She devoured the book in four days, pausing to look up new words on her phone.
Anna’s teacher, Meghan McGrew, said the event was a rare opportunity to bring together thousands of students scattered across the five boroughs.
“The energy is insane,” she said. “Everyone is in the same excitement, and you can feel it.”
