This fall, A.C.T. will be hosting the Bay Area premiere of Dustin Lance Black's play based on the 2010 Prop 8 trial in federal district court in San Francisco. The event will be a staged reading on October 7, and proceeds will benefit the American Foundation for Equal Rights — the L.A.-based organization that helped bring the case to overturn Prop 8 to court and funded the legal team of David Boies and Ted Olson — as well as Broadway Impact. Black's play was first performed in a staged reading last September in New York, and it had its Los Angeles premiere in March with an all-star cast that included George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Martin Sheen, John C. Reilly, and Kevin Bacon. The cast for the San Francisco production is yet to be announced, but you can hopefully expect one or two marquis names.

The play centers around the dramatic closing arguments in the case, which resulted in Judge Vaughn Walker's declaring that the 2008 law was indeed unconstitutional — a decision which was held up on appeal by the Ninth Circuit, and now waits to possibly be taken up by the Supreme Court.

Tickets for the October 7 event will range between $50 and $100, and a limited number of $250 tickets are being sold with premium seating and entry to a post-performance reception with the cast. You can call 415.749.2228 to buy tickets, or go to the A.C.T. website. The reading will start at 7 p.m.

The reading of "8" will occur just after the closing performance of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart, which starts on September 13. The revival of The Normal Heart, which was Kramer's play about the early days of the AIDS crisis among gay men in New York City, comes direct from a Tony Award-winning run on Broadway.