George Clooney Joins One-Night-Only Proposition 8 Play

He's always had a nose for causes benefiting from the Silver Screen's booming voice but this time, George Clooney is taking his social conscience off-screen.

The Huffington Post reports that the "Syriana" Oscar-winner, "The Descendants" star and "The Ides of March" star, director, writer and co-producer George Clooney has joined a March 3 one-night-only, Rob Reiner-directed production of the Dustin Lance Black play "8," which tells the story of the courtroom battle for gay marriage in California that overturned marriage-banning Proposition 8.

It centers upon the uneasy partnership of one-time rivals: former Solicitor General Theodore Olsen and attorney David Boies, who put aside their differences to fight the ban.

Californians passed the November 2008 ballot measure overturning the California State Supreme Court's previous ruling validating same-sex marriages, but District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker overturned Proposition 8 on Aug. 4, 2010 when he ruled in Perry v. Schwarzenegger that it violated the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection and Due Process clauses.

"It is astonishing that gay and lesbian Americans are still treated as second-class citizens," Clooney said. "I am confident that, very soon, the laws of this nation will reflect the basic truth that gay and lesbian people -- like all human beings -- are born equal in dignity and rights."

In a decision probably evocative of how nobody but the participants really could describe the scene in the closed courtroom during the hearing first-hand - and of the fact that getting the hearing's transcripts released by the federal courts took some doing after the hearing - the play will reportedly be read by the cast sitting in director's chairs with little to no actual set-dressing.

Black himself has a writing Oscar to his credit for the biopic "Milk," and previously produced a New York City version of the play that starred Morgan Freeman, Ellen Barkin, John Lithgow and others.