'Mockingbird' production at risk in Lee's hometown.

MONROEVILLE, Ala. -- Each spring when the azaleas bloom, attorney Atticus Finch, daughter Scout and other characters from ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' come to life on the courthouse lawn in the Alabama hometown of author Harper Lee, who will release a sequel to her classic novel in July.

Townspeople, all volunteers largely without theater experience, join together annually to perform a stage version of Lee's story of racial injustice in the Deep South. The play opens outside the courthouse and ends in the same courtroom that was a set model for the Hollywood version of the book.

The production is a point of civic pride that draws crowds from across the globe and helps fill motels, restaurants and shops in otherwise sleepy Monroeville, a town of 6,300 in southwest Alabama. This year's shows opens Wednesday with a performance for schoolchildren; others have been sold out for weeks, partly because of excitement created by word of Lee's unexpected ''Mockingbird'' follow-up -- ''Go Set a Watchman.''

Yet the play, now in its 26th season, may eventually be coming to an end.

Organizers haven't been able to obtain rights to produce the play beyond 2015, records show, and a person involved in the delay is the same person who came under scrutiny after discovering ''Watchman'' and alerting a publisher: Lee's attorney Tonja Carter.

Probate Judge Greg Norris in Monroe County is working with Carter to obtain permission to stage ''Mockingbird'' in 2016. Tonja Carter's husband has been appointed to the board that oversees the play, but the future of the production is in ''limbo,'' according to minutes from a March meeting of directors of the Monroe County Heritage Museum. The museum puts on the play each year.

Norris declined comment on specifics of the talks Tuesday, saying only that he's hopeful the play will continue in the downtown amphitheater where it's currently staged.

''We want the play for our community. It makes people proud,'' Norris told The Associated Press.

Carter, who has handled business affairs for the famously private author for several years, didn't return a message seeking comment.

Neither did the president of the Illinois-based Dramatic Publishing Co., which licenses the play.

But friction isn't anything new between Lee and the museum, located in the old Monroe County Courthouse where the play is put on each year.

In 2013, Lee sued the museum over ''Mockingbird'' souvenirs sold in its store after seeking a federal trademark for the title...