About the work
8 is a documentary play by Dustin Lance Black, based on trial transcripts and his own observation of the federal case Perry v. Schwarzenegger, which challenged California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage in 2010. It received a one-night benefit premiere on 19 September 2011 at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on Broadway in support of the American Foundation for Equal Rights.
Plot
The play assembles key testimony and closing arguments from both legal teams into a courtroom drama on stage, tracing how Judge Vaughn Walker arrived at his ruling against Proposition 8.
Cultural significance
Because cameras were barred from the courtroom, 8 was meant to give the public retrospective access to this consequential trial; the starry Broadway premiere was followed in subsequent years by numerous further benefit readings elsewhere, often with rotating celebrity casts.