Prop. 8 Trial: From Courtroom to Broadway Stage

A staged reading based on the 2010 Proposition 8 trial in San Francisco will premiere on Broadway in September, to be followed by productions nationwide.

The New York Times reports that Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, a board member for the American Foundation for Equal Rights, wrote the play, titled 8, over a six-month period using thousands of pages of court transcripts for material in the 90-minute work.

"One of my hopes about the trial was to get the opposition in court, hands raised swearing to tell the truth, and have the world see the opposition called to account for going on TV saying gay people harm children, harm families," Black said. "Since the trial itself wasn't heard or seen, I wanted to get that story out another way."

The September 19 Broadway performance, staged by Tony Award-winning director Joe Mantello, will be followed by performances at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan, among other venues.

Read the NYT report here.