The Revolution WILL Be Televised: "A People's History of the United States" to Be Produced as TV Miniseries

The taping of The People Speak, the television adaptation of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, is set for Boston's Cutler Majestic Theatre for January 8 and 9, 2008, according to Variety, the entertainment industry bible. Planned as a four-part, four-hour-long documentary touching on the issues of class, race, women and war, the miniseries The People Speak will feature performances by Academy Award winners Matt Damon and Marisa Tomei, Oscar nominee David Strathairn, Emmy-nominee Danny Glover, and Golden Globe nominee Viggo Mortensen. Each segment will be taped before a live audience in a two-hour session at the Boston theater, then edited into the final form of four, one-hour segments.

A People's History of the United States is the most popular academic history ever published in the United States, having sold over one million copies. Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, further developed the concept with its sequel, Voices of A People's History of the United States, which was co-written with Anthony Arnove and published in 2004. Zinn wrote A People's History of the United States to elucidate the dark side of American history and give voice to those who went unheard in establishment histories. Thus, Voices of a People's History was a natural outgrowth of his history book, as it gave literal voice to the disenfranchised and the rebels who were too often ignored. Voices then was adapted for the stage.

Stagings of Voices of a People's History features actors and others such as Zinn himself reading from books, speeches and interviews of actual people, both famous and unknown, and also features music. All selections are related to the themes of class struggle and grassroots movements to overcome racism, sexism and war. Voices, in turn, midwifed a play Rebel Voices, by Rob Urbinarti, which debuted in November 2007.