“Trial By Fire,” a new play by Eric Mansfield, tells the story of a woman of color put on trial for allowing her students to read books from a banned list.

Mansfield, who is also Kent State’s assistant vice president of content strategy, said that he felt this was a story that needed to be told.

“Banned books is becoming a bigger and bigger debate across the country,” Mansfield said. 

According to Mansfield, there are over five hundred books banned in Florida and more than eight hundred in Texas.

“When I first started this a year ago, I wanted to write a courtroom drama,” Mansfield said. “A year later, librarians are quitting, teachers are quitting. They are rounding up books on topics of race and the LGBT community.”

On July 6, Mansfield had a public reading of “Trial By Fire” at the Akron-Summit County Public Library. He started off the event by holding up the book “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe. 

“This is the most dangerous book in America,” he told the crowd.

“Gender Queer” is the number one banned book in the United States. It follows the author’s journey of exploring their gender and eventually realizing that they are non-binary.

“To ban books that can help LGBT youth, it’s just mean spirited,” Mansfield said.

“Trial By Fire” was a finalist at the Loft Theater in Los Angeles and has two parties who are interested in producing the play in the future.

Mansfield started off his career in broadcast journalism at WKYC-TV, but is now taking the playwriting world by storm.

“I still enjoyed telling stories after leaving television,” Mansfield said. “When I’m not at Kent State, I’m writing plays.”

According to Mansfield, he has written more than twenty plays and several movie scripts. He is also a part of the Dramatist Guild for professional playwrights.

“If people leave [my show] and talk about it, that’s when I feel really good about my playwriting,” he said.

Destiny Torres is a reporter. Contact her at [email protected].