Staged reading at Manchester’ Palace Theater

Friday, February 10, 2012

Courtesy photo The University of New Hampshire’s Department of Theatre and Dance will present a staged reading of “8,” written by Dustin Lance Black at Manchester’ Palace Theater at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 10.

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The University of New Hampshire’s Department of Theatre and Dance will present a staged reading of “8,” at Manchester’s Palace Theater at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 10.

Presented in partnership with UNH campus groups. Mask and Dagger, Wild Acts and the Alliance, the hotly topical play “8,” is written by Dustin Lance Black, who won an Academy Award in screenwriting for 2009’s “Milk.”

The one-night-only reading of “8” centers around the unprecedented account of the Federal District Court trial in Perry v. Schwarzenegger (now Perry v. Brown), the case filed by the American Federation for Equal Rights to overturn Proposition 8, which eliminated the right to marry for gay and lesbian couples in California. The play will be read in states where marriage equality battles loom, including Maine, Maryland, North Carolina and the Granite State.

“We decided to do the play because we were approached by Broadway Impact, and they also approached UNH and we worked with them to get the cast to read,” said Cate Burns, marketing director for the Palace Theatre.

Peter Ramsay, director of the Palace, noted that the Palace, is a “presenting theater.”

“That means, basically, that we do lots of different types of art here. For example, last Sunday we had the opera, and we host the New Hampshire Theater Awards.

“(The Palace) was contacted by a number of performers who have worked here and work in New York, and they knew that the play was being produced over at UNH and that it was going to be done at a number of different venues and we had the night open, so basically, we are renting the theater for the production,” Ramsay said.

The play is mostly culled from transcripts of the 2010 federal court battle that dealt with the legality of Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that outlawed same-sex marriage in California. Ramsay added that while the play may be controversial to some people, “it’s a work of art. And I don’t think it’s any more controversial than our renting out the theater to President Obama during the campaign, or the Republican City Committee.”

Ramsay maintained that although the Palace is a public theater, it is a nonprofit and considers itself a community theater for the state of New Hampshire.

“As director, I take responsibility for the decision. Some people will be mad at me, but there were some people mad because they didn’t like the show ‘Oklahoma’ ” Ramsay said, “Ultimately, it’s up to the individual whether they want to come and see it or not. We’re not forcing anybody to come.”

Tickets are $20 and can be purchased by calling the Palace box office at 688-5588.