Larry Kramer Cast as Evan Wolfson in Black's Play

Larry Kramer is the latest illustrious name added to the cast of Dustin Lance Black's play 8, based on the historic trial in the federal legal challenge to California's Proposition 8.

Kramer, esteemed playwright of The Normal Heart, will play civil rights attorney Evan Wolfson, also the founder and president of Freedom to Marry, the national campaign to end marriage discrimination. Another new addition to the cast is veteran actor Bob Balaban, who will play U.S. district chief judge Vaughn Walker.

The one-night-only benefit production is shaping up to be the most exciting theatrical event of the season. Other noted actors already announced include Cheyenne Jackson and Matt Bomer as Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo, a gay couple who were two of the four plaintiffs in the Prop. 8 trial; Christine Lahti and Marisa Tomei will play the other plaintiffs, Sandy Stier and Kris Perry, a lesbian couple. Morgan Freeman and John Lithgow will play David Boies and Theodore B. Olson, the two attorneys appointed by American Foundation for Equal Rights to lead the case filed to overturn Prop. 8.

8 will be performed September 19 at New York's Eugene O'Neill Theatre. The one-night-only staged reading will benefit the foundation.