8 the play streaming live tonight

[Owen22]

I'm sure everyone must know about this, right? Its not on the first page (that I could find) so here's the info.

Log on to You Tube at 7:30 (Pacific Time, 10:30 Eastern) to see George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Matt Bomer, Chris Coffer, Jamie Lee Curtis and a whole bunch of other famous-type folk perform Dustin Lance Black's treatment of the Prop 8 Case (based on the actual court transcripts).

Here's the link: http://www.afer.org/live/

[LizzieCurry]

Can't wait!

This also was covered by Mashable: http://mashable.com/2012/03/02/youtube-propostion-8-play/

[Jordan Catalano]

Will you be able to watch it tomorrow?

[willep]

Ugh, I really want to watch it but won't be free when it is streaming

[somethingwicked]

willep, what do you mean? The live stream is free.

EDIT: Just realized I misread. Sorry!

[dshnookie]

willep has other plans at the time of the stream

[willep]

Haha yeah, I meant that I am unavailable to watch it. I'm gonna catch the first couple minutes but that's it.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Ugh, mine keeps buffering every three seconds...and why did it just cut to an infomercial during Matt and Matt...I can watch this again tomorrow, right?

[welcometothetheater]

@Jay Lerner-Z, the infomercial (or campaign ad, you mean?) is part of the script. My college is doing a reading of this in the fall.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Thanks - I realized that later on, the first time it cut off Matt Bomer mid sentence, so I wasn't sure!

[PalJoey]

"And that's what we did: We put fear and prejudice on trial. And fear and prejudice lost."

--George Clooney, portraying David Boies in "8"

[bjh2114]

Martin Sheen took my breath away.

[welcometothetheater]

bjh2114, I so agree. A brilliant, chilling speech.

[AwesomeDanny]

Martin Sheen gave by far the best performance of the bunch. Most of the other performances felt very forced. Perhaps a future production with a longer rehearsal time will benefit the play more.

[kidbroadway2]

Looked at sections of it, seemed pretty good. Hopefully they post the Martin Sheen speech as separate, because I missed that.

[somethingwicked]

AwesomeDanny, while I agree that Sheen's speech was the highlight, I completely disagree that all the other performances felt "forced." Jamie Lee Curtis and Christine Lahti (who did the reading here in New York in the same role) were particularly moving.

[bwayfan7000]

I completely forgot this was happening and I missed this. I really hope that another way to watch it will pop up.

[bjh2114]

The whole thing will be available for viewing on the website later. Other than Sheen, I thought Brad Pitt did a really good job as the judge and Kevin Bacon did an excellent job as the defense attorney. Also, I was VERY surprised by how much I liked Chris Colfer, whom I usually cannot stand.

[LizzieCurry]

It's actually up NOW (yay!) but only for about a week.

[bwayfan7000]

Hooray! I can't wait to watch this soon!

[mormonophobic]

You can actually watch it now, though I'm not sure how long it will stay up. For some reason you have to skip ahead to 29:51, though it should have a "Skip ahead to start" button.

I had completely forgotten about this, so thanks for the reminder, Owen22. Have to agree with the praise for Martin Sheen. Even with a script in hand, he still gave me chills. I also thought Christine Lahti was quite good.

[Idiot]

Just finished watching it. I'm having a complicated response.

I'm thrilled that it was presented this way and very grateful for the star power that will get it seen.

I don't like the 'family' framing of the piece though. We homos don't need to be 'just like straight people' to deserve equal rights. I understand how it's useful to the argument, but it's also indirectly propagating a falsehood. In my experience, most gay people do not want a family with children. (And no, I'm not bashing those who do -- I'm saying that it's not the norm in the gay community and I chafe at the idea that it is or needs to be.)

[somethingwicked]

I also wanted to mention that I thought Jane Lynch was incredible. Her commitment and power in the Maggie Gallagher vignettes was really, really impressive. It made me want to see much more of her on stage in the future (she'd be a really interesting Dr. Brookner in THE NORMAL HEART.)

[Jordan Catalano]

I hope they release this on DVD.
Watch Now

[jrb_actor]

The purpose of showing the family is a direct response to the criticisms made by Prop 8 supporters. They tried/try to say that we aren't capable of such relationships. This framing device reinforces how wrong they are.

[Idiot]

^

Yes, I understand the choice in the courtroom (the transcript based material), but the choice in the fictional material outside of the courtroom was too blatantly assimilationist for my taste. Perhaps if they hadn't gone to the 'soccer practice' place, or if the gay male couple hadn't have interjected toward the end that they, too, want kids one day, it wouldn't have come across as being quite so pandering.