A single father in the Am­erican South tries to teach his children quiet lessons of peace and justice in Denton Com­mu­nity Theatre’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

Also this weekend, a single, royal father tries to keep his sanity after his daughters have banished him in King Lear.

Both classics hit the stage this weekend. Christopher Sergel’s adaptation of the Harper Lee novel will be at the historic Campus Theatre downtown, and Lear will be at the small Green Space Arts Collective.

Patrick Bynane, a faculty member with the Texas Woman’s University theater department, makes his Campus Theatre debut with Mockingbird, the wrenching story of Jean Louise Finch, who’s known simply as “Scout,” as she watches her father defend a black man accused of assaulting a white woman. Scout’s brother, Jem, navigates the complicated social terrain along with her.

“Very few stories in American culture resonate with the same power,” Bynane said in a news release. “It is a testament to both Lee and Sergel that the play never becomes bogged down in nostalgia.”

Scout sees her father’s courage and conviction in a time when it means forfeiting his family’s safety.

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Performance artist and dancer Jeff Kaplan returns to Denton with K. Lear, which re-imagines the third act of the Shakespeare drama in modern dance. The act presents the classic storm scene after Lear’s daughters banish him. He meets a series of characters, good and bad. Eventually, Lear retreats to a hovel and puts his daughters on trial in his mind.

Kaplan performs the piece in a straitjacket and medical scrubs, portraying all eight characters in the act. He combines modern dance with Shake­speare’s verses, and stitches the whole thing together with Lear as a mind fragmented by schizophrenia.

Kaplan earned his bachelor’s degree in history from Grinnell College and his master’s in dance from Texas Woman’s University. He has worked both as a choreographer and a dancer, but his current creative interest is “text and movement” solo performance.

—Lucinda Breeding

 

What: Jeff Kaplan’s modern dance interpretation of Act III of Shakespeare’s King Lear

When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Where: Green Space Arts Collective, 529 Malone St.

Details: Tickets are $10.

 

What: Denton Community Theatre presents the drama by Christopher Sergel, based on the novel by Harper Lee

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 9-10 and May 16-17; and 2 p.m. Sunday, May 11 and 18

Where: Campus Theatre, 214 W. Hickory St.

Details: Tickets are $17 for adults, $15 for seniors 62 and older, and $10 for children and students through college. For ticket information, call 940-382-1915. Group rates are available.