Adapter

Christopher Sergel (b.1918) was the president of Dramatic Publishing from 1970 until his death in 1993. He occasionally adapted novels, short stories, and screenplays, which were then published by his company. He wrote adaptations of The Outsiders, Pillow Talk, Cheaper by the Dozen, and Fame, among others.

Sergel on To Kill a Mockingbird:

Perhaps the essence of what I believe she does better than any writer I know is captured in a brief response Atticus makes to a question from his daughter Scout. In the book as in the play, Tom Robinson, a black man, is wrongly convicted of a crime he did not commit and is later shot down by prison guards as he tries to escape. In anguish Scout asks her father how such a thing could be done to Tom. Atticus replies, “Because he wasn’t ‘Tom’ to them.” The special beauty of Harper Lee’s work is that she takes us inside the people of her book, and in their various individual ways, each becomes “Tom” to us.

Montana Rep: Story about Christopher Sergel's meeting with Harper Lee about the adaptation.
Dramatic Publishing: Short bio and list of works.