Black Wants Obama and Bachmann to Attend Prop. 8 Play

Dustin Lance Black has two dream guests he'd like to see in the audience for the staged reading of 8, his play about the struggle for marriage equality: President Obama and Marcus Bachmann, according to Next magazine.

"If anyone could be there and really listen, I would give my left arm to have President Obama sitting front and center," Black reveals. "To see what it is we're fighting for, and why it's important something be done about it now."

Black would also like to see Marcus Bachmann, notorious for his antigay reparative therapy practice, and suspected by some to be gay himself. "It's time he see that it's okay to be gay," Black says. "I mean that for the kids he's supposedly helping and for himself. President Obama and Bachmann in the front row. What more do I need?"

Black says he wrote the play as a gift. "I don't ever want to make a dime off it," he says. "It should always benefit the community in two ways. One, any money that does ever come out of it goes towards this equality movement, and I'll ensure that happens. And, two, it's a communication tool. I think [the trial involving Proposition 8] was one of the most truthful, illuminating three weeks in the history of our movement. In that way this play isn't just documentation -- it's a rallying cry for people to support this landmark case and to know how landmark it was. We need to have evidence of it, to share it, and shed light on the truth of who we are and why we're asking for what we're asking for."

The staged reading of 8 will take place at New York's Eugene O'Neill Theatre Monday as a benefit for the American Foundation for Equal Rights. It's attracted a stellar cast, including Morgan Freeman, Larry Kramer, Cheyenne Jackson, Matt Bomer, Rob Reiner, John Lithgow, and Ellen Barkin.