The explosive protests and police riots outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the ensuing conspiracy trial gave voice to the tumultuous cultural, social and racial politics of the time. Throughout the long months of the now-infamous trial, America's nightly newscasts featured updates and reports on the almost daily press conferences held by defendants and their supporters, galvanizing the nation's interest in the unfolding battle between the forces of State repression and the burgeoning youth and anti-war movement.
Frank Condon and Ron Sossi have crafted a powerful and dramatically gripping script from a careful selection of actual court transcripts, and The Chicago Conspiracy Trial is their play. Performed to critical acclaim since 1979, it is accompanied here by an introduction and historical reflections written by Tom Hayden, one of the original Chicago 8 defendants. This incredibly potent book captures the trial's original energy; confrontational and sometimes theatrical tactics; and its absolute outrage, presenting the dramatic and uncensored voices of Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale, Yippie activists Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, poet Allen Ginsberg, and many more.
About the Author: Tom Hayden changed America, the national correspondent of The Atlantic, Nicholas Lemann, has written. He created the blueprint for the Great Society programs, according to presidential assistant Richard Goodwin. He was the single greatest figure of the 1960s student movement, according to a New York Times book review. Forty years later he was described as the conscience of the Senate.
Frank Condon has directed all five of the professional productions of The Chicago Conspiracy Trial to date, including the original production at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. That production garnered him Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle Awards for both directing and playwriting.
Ron Sossi, Artistic Director of the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, received a BA in Theatre from the University of Michigan where he won the Avery Hopwood Playwriting Award, and an MA in Film from UCLA, where he was awarded the Samuel Goldwyn Creative Writing Award.
