A facile and practical palladium-catalyzed nucleophilic substitution/C鈥揌 activation/aromatization cascade reaction has been developed. A range of 6-unsubstituted phenanthridines could be obtained in moderate to good yields (31鈥?5%) with readily prepared N-Ms arylamines and commercially available 2-bromobenzyl bromide derivatives as starting materials. The potential application of the protocol was also demonstrated by the expeditious synthesis of the natural alkaloid trisphaeridine.