George Clooney is headed for the stage - at least for one night.

The Oscar winner will star in a benefit Los Angeles performance of 8, a play chronicling the historic trial in the federal constitutional challenge to California’s Proposition 8.

The play was written by Dustin Lance Black and is being presented by Broadway Impact and the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) of which Black is a founding board member.

Clooney, nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award Wednesday for his performance in the film The Descendents, will be directed by Rob Reiner. He is clearly passionate about the play which Black based on the actual words of the trial transcripts, first-hand observations of the courtroom drama and interviews with the plaintiffs and their families.

“It is astonishing that gay and lesbian Americans are still treated as second-class citizens,” Clooney said in a statement.  “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.”

The West Coast premiere at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre will take place on March 3, 2012, in Los Angeles and is a fundraiser to benefit AFER.

Reiner told the Los Angeles Public Radio Station KPCC Wednesday that Clooney will play either David Boies or Ted Olson, the attorneys for AFER who have led the legal battle to overturn Proposition 8, a law passed by voters which stripped gay and lesbian Californians of the right to marry.

Reiner declined to reveal any other cast names but he did tell KPCC that he has spoken to Glee star Jane Lynch.

The Los Angeles event follows a successful performance of the play in New York in September featuring a cast including Morgan Freeman, Ellen Barkin, John Lithgow and Bradley Whitford.