Gay News

The stars get out their 'jazz hands' for Prop 8: The Musical

Wednesday, 10th December 2008

Written by Francesca Cookney

Proposition 8 the musical Jack Black, John C Reilly, and Neil Patrick Harris are just some of the stars to take to the stage for Marc Shaiman's 3-minute 'protest' against California's Proposition 8.

Prop 8: The Musical is a comedy video posted on FunnyOrDie.com on Wednesday but already it has had over 1.1 million views as well as more than a thousand comments on its board. The musical opens with a group of shiny, happy California folk celebrating the election win ("It's a brand new bright Obama day") moving on to see a funereal John C Reilly pop out from behind a sun umbrella, armed with the Proposition ("Quick nobody's watching, it's time to spread some hate").

Jack Black makes a cameo as Jesus with some wise words on interpreting the bible's message ("Well, the bible says a lot of things, you know?") before Harris comes along to conclude that actually "gay marriages will save the economy". The video took Tony-winning "Hairspray" composer, Marc Shaiman just three days to put together from scratch and was designed to be a lighter-hearted approach.

Shaiman has been involved more serious debate, not least after the artistic director of the California Musical Theater in Sacramento – where "Hairspray" had previously played – was discovered to have donated $1000 to the Prop 8 campaign. But of the musical he said: "It was like, Eureka! That's right, that's what I do! If I'm going to stand on the soap box, at least let me sing and dance."