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8 (play)

2011 play by Dustin Lance Black

Field	Value
name	8
image	8 the play.jpg
caption	Official Poster
writer	Dustin Lance Black
Kate Sullivan Gibbens
premiere	September 19, 2011 (Broadway)
March 3, 2012 (worldwide broadcast)
place	Eugene O'Neill Theatre
Ebell of Los Angeles broadcast live on YouTube
subject	Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial reenactment using original court transcripts and first-hand interviews of the people involved
genre	verbatim theatre
documentary theatre
web	http://www.8theplay.com

Kate Sullivan Gibbens March 3, 2012 (worldwide broadcast) Ebell of Los Angeles broadcast live on YouTube documentary theatre 8 is a 2011 American play that portrays the closing arguments of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, a federal trial that led to the overturn of Proposition 8, an amendment banning same-sex marriages in California. It was created by Dustin Lance Black in light of the court's denial of a motion to release a video recording of the trial and to give the public a true account of what transpired in the courtroom.

The play is written in the style of verbatim theatre reenactment, using transcripts from the trial, journalist records, and media interviews from the plaintiffs, defendants and proponents involved. 8 first premiered on September 19, 2011 at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in New York City, and later broadcast worldwide from the Ebell of Los Angeles on March 3, 2012. Black brought the play to San Francisco, the home of the court case on which the play was based, on October 7, 2012 for a one-night-only reading at the ACT Theater. A cast reception following the reading included an appearance by the trial judge, Vaughn Walker. On October 22, 2012, another one-night-only reading was performed at the downtown Crest Theater in Sacramento, California, U.S.

The American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) and Broadway Impact, sponsors of the play, have licensed the play for readings nationwide on college campuses and in community theaters free of charge, as an educational tool.See

Long Beach, CA:
Sacramento, CA:
Sacramento, CA:

A radio adaptation was broadcast on JOY 94.9, an LGBTIQ community radio station in Melbourne, Australia, on March 27, 2014.

Context

In May 2009, AFER filed a lawsuit, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of plaintiffs, two same-sex couples, to challenge a voter-approved constitutional amendment, known as Proposition 8, that eliminated same-sex couples' right to marry in the state. The same-sex couples were represented by David Boies and former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, two high-profile attorneys who opposed each other in the U.S. Supreme Court case, Bush v. Gore.

Cast and characters

The following is a list of the cast of characters, along with the actors that portrayed them in the play's premieres.

Character	Description	Broadway (2011)	Los Angeles broadcast (2012)
Judge	Bob Balaban	Brad Pitt	Christopher Cabaldon
Lawyer for Plaintiffs	John Lithgow	Martin Sheen	Ben Patrick Johnson
Lawyer for Plaintiffs	Morgan Freeman	George Clooney	Kurt Johnson
Lawyer for Defense	Bradley Whitford	Kevin Bacon	Matt K Miller
	Kate Shindle	Vanessa García	Jessica Goldman
	Christine Lahti	Unknown}}
	Ellen Barkin	Jamie Lee Curtis
Son of Plaintiff	Jay Armstrong Johnson	Bridger Zadina	Austin Laut
Son of Plaintiff	Ben Rosenfield	Jansen Panettiere	Grant Laut
	Matt Bomer	Thai Rivera
	Cheyenne Jackson	Matthew Morrison	Evan Brienza
Testified on the history of marriage	Yeardley Smith	Robin Hushbeck
Testified on the nature of homosexuality; sexual orientation	K. Todd Freeman	Rory O'Malley	Michael RJ Campbell
Testified on minority stress; stigma impacts; discrimination	Anthony Edwards	Jesse Tyler Ferguson	Eason Donner
Testified on the vulnerability of gays and lesbians in the nation's political process	Stephen Spinella	James Pickens, Jr.	Nanci Zoppi
Testified on being forced by parents to undergo "conversion therapy" as a youth	Rory O'Malley	Chris Colfer	Patrick Burns
Testified on marriage being a socially-approved, sexual relationship between man and woman	Rob Reiner	John C. Reilly	Steve Minnow
Testified on same-sex marriage leading to polygamy, pedophilia, and incest	Ken Leung	George Takei	Ben Phillips
Founder of Freedom to Marry	Larry Kramer	Cleve Jones	George Raya
NOM President (opponent of same-sex marriage)	Jayne Houdyshell	Jane Lynch	Janis Stevens
	Campbell Brown	Unknown}}

References

Ng, David. (March 4, 2012). "George Clooney, Brad Pitt lead all-star Prop. 8 play reading". [[Los Angeles Times]].
(March 5, 2012). "Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Martin Sheen headline West Coast premiere of marriage-rights play".
(October 7, 2012). "Holland Taylor, Luke Macfarlane, and More Set for '8' Reading at ACT Tonight, 10/7".
(October 13, 2012). "Dustin Lance Black's "8" Comes to Sacramento - Sacramento Press".
McKinley, Jesse. (May 27, 2009). "Bush v. Gore Foes Join to Fight Gay Marriage Ban". [[The New York Times]].
(May 22, 2009). "Complaint, ''Perry v. Schwarzenegger''". American Foundation for Equal Rights.
Brown, Willie. (May 31, 2009). "Bush–Gore legal pair push gay marriage suit". [[San Francisco Chronicle]].
"The Characters". [[American Foundation for Equal Rights]]. afer.org.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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