Court is out of session for “A Time to Kill.”
The first Broadway play adapted from one of John Grisham’s legal thrillers will close on Sunday, November 17, 2013, less than a month after it officially opened.
Without a prominent movie star in the cast, the play has struggled to find its footing in field of star-driven productions like “Betrayal” with Daniel Craig and “The Glass Menagerie” with Zachary Quinto. Last week, it was the lowest grossing play on Broadway, eking out $215,431 or 31 percent of its gross potential, according to Broadway World.
Reviews for the show were mixed. In a largely negative appraisal, TheWrap’s Robert Hofler wrote, “It spins a tale that doesn’t cover much territory.”
Also read: ‘A Time to Kill’ Theater Review: John Grisham’s Tale Should Have Settled Out of Court
“A Time to Kill” centers on a black man who murders the white men who raped his young daughter. It stars Tom Skerritt and Fred Dalton Thompson and was adapted for the stage by Rupert Holmes. Preview performances for the show began on September 28, 2013, and opening night was October 20, 2013.
“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,” the show’s producers Daryl Roth and Eva Price said in a statement. “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.”
The show also announced that Grisham will welcome the audience prior to evening performance of “A Time to Kill” on Nov. 14 and will talk about the novel and its sequel, “Sycamore Row.”