Bradley Manning, the Army private accused of stealing classified government documents for Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks Web site, makes his first appearance in military court in Maryland today to face charges that could put him in jail for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, National Theatre Wales plans to produce a play based on the infamous private’s formative years in the country, in the very school he attended there.

"The Radicalization of Bradley Manning," written by Tim Price, will be about Manning’s life in Wales from age 12 to 16. At age 12, Manning, a homosexual, socially awkward loner with a gift for hacking, moved with his mother to her hometown of  Haverfordwest, Wales shortly after she divorced his father in 1999. After finishing his GCSEs, the British equivalent of a high school diploma, he returned to the United States at age 16. The play takes the audience through Manning’s time as a sexually confused teenager to becoming a legendary whistleblower — he was arrested in May 2010 and charged with 36 counts for allegedly leaking the diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, including aiding the enemy and violating the Espionage Act.

"It's really exciting," Price told the Guardian about the play, which is also an interactive experience for theatergoers. "The audience will be walking down the corridors that Bradley walked down."

The Army private’s upbringing resonated with Price, who felt compelled to write the play after realizing he had a similar background. "I identified with him as a human being first. He felt like somebody that shared certain values, but when I discovered he'd spent his teenage years in Wales, that just struck a chord," he told the Guardian.

Manning isn’t the only character out of WikiLeaks to provide fodder for the performing arts. A play, "Stainless Steel Rat, " about WikiLeaks founder Assange debuted in Sydney last June and will be performed in London next month under the name "Man in the Middle." Opera Australia announced last month it would use Assange’s story as the basis for a production. It’s also a sure bet the WikiLeaks will land on the silver screen — Steven Spielberg bought the film rights to the book, "WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy."