Execution of Justice

Execution of Justice is an ensemble play by Emily Mann chronicling the case of the People vs. Dan White. White assassinated San Francisco mayor George Moscone and openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk in November 1978. The play was originally commissioned by the Eureka Theater Company and had an early production by Arena Stage in their 1984/1985 season. It opened on Broadway on March 13, 1986 with John Spencer playing Dan White and a cast that included Wesley Snipes, Stanley Tucci, Mary McDonnell, and Earle Hyman.

In the play the trial itself is on trial in the court of theater and is found guilty of a miscarriage of justice parallelling the actual case which resulted in White being convicted of a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, rather than two counts of first-degree murder, and sentenced to less than eight years. The play references the urban legend that White's defense strategy was primarily the so-called "Twinkie defense" — painting his junk food consumption as a significant or even in some versions the sole cause of his actions.

The highly emotional play combines live stage action, videos, taped voices and music including a video camera on stage projecting its image onto large screens throughout the performance which uses the drag nun Sister Boom Boom, an AIDS activist, (played in the original production by Wesley Snipes) as a voice of consciousness representing human rights for all marginalized groups, not just gays.