“THE EXECUTION OF RAYMOND GRAHAM,” Sunday, 9-11...

“THE EXECUTION OF RAYMOND GRAHAM,” Sunday, 9-11 p.m. (7) (3) (10) (42)--Live drama was once a TV staple. But it’s been 25 years since ABC presented a live drama in prime time.

Now comes this Death Row story with an impressive pedigree. The producer is David W. Rintels (“Gideon’s Trumpet” and HBO’s “Sakharov”), who also produced live dramas for NBC in the early 1980s, and the director is Daniel Petrie (“Eleanor and Franklin,” “The Dollmaker”). The script is by Rintels and Mel Frohman.

The “ABC Theater” production, being staged in Toronto, will be shown live in most of the country, except in the West where it will air on a three-hour delay. Hence this is one production that can’t be previewed. On paper, though, it looks fascinating:

Time is running out on a fictional convicted murderer named Raymond Graham, who is scheduled to be executed at 10:58 p.m., two minutes before the end of the telecast. He fatally shot a 17-year-old boy six years ago.

Graham has been on Death Row for five years while his lawyer has pursued legal avenues to keep him from being executed by lethal injection in the prison’s death chamber. After the Supreme Court refuses to stay his execution, his attorney’s assistant frantically tries to locate the governor--an advocate of capital punishment--to plead for clemency.

The issue of capital punishment--an especially hot item in California--is explored here in a very personal way, from the perspectives of those closest to the case. And as the minutes pass away, the participants assemble to await the outcome.

Jeff Fahey plays Graham, who has been on the wrong side of the law since childhood. Kate Reid plays Graham’s devastated mother, Graham Beckel his brother and Laurie Metcalf his sister. Josef Sommer and Lois Smith play the victim’s parents and Michael Dolan his kid brother.

All of them wait, along with us, as the prison clock keeps ticking.