George Clooney's play Good Night, and Good Luck goes live on CNN, makes broadway history

CNN broadcast a special preshow outside the theatre, hosted by anchor Pamela Brown, prior to the performance.

The goal of this Saturday's live CNN broadcast of George Clooney's play Good Night, and Good Luck was to raise awareness of Broadway and emphasise its timely message.

The focus of the production is journalist Edward R. Murrow's fearless reporting in which he opposes Senator Joseph McCarthy's divisive strategies while encountering opposition from both McCarthy and CBS executives.

At 7 p.m. ET, CNN and CNN International aired the play live. It was also streamed on the CNN website and Max.

CNN broadcast a special preshow outside the theatre, hosted by anchor Pamela Brown, prior to the performance. Anderson Cooper then led a post-show discussion about the play and the state of journalism today.

Clooney, who co-wrote the play and plays Murrow, was the impetus behind the live broadcast.

The broadcast was executive produced by Den of Thieves, a production company that has previously worked with Clooney and on live events like the VMAs. In the 1,500-seat theatre, they used 20 cameras and 14 camera operators who were placed in the aisles and surrounding the live audience.

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Their goal was to capture the production exactly as it appeared on stage, including occasional shots of the audience, rather than creating a stylized broadcast.

George Clooney, Jeff Skoll's Participant Media, and Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban's production company, 2929 Entertainment, provided funding for the live broadcast. Both the underlying rights and the live capture rights were held by these organisations, which also produced the play and the 2005 movie on which it is based.