West Wing cast reunites for special performance to promote voting drive
Fourteen years after the final episode of the West Wing aired, and as a real-life race for the White House enters its final weeks, the stars of the beloved political drama have reunited for a theatrical staging of a single episode.
A word-for-word re-enactment of Hartsfield’s Landing, an episode from season three that has been adapted for the stage, will air on HBO Max on 15 October and feature guest appearances from Michelle Obama, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Samuel L Jackson, Marlee Matlin and Bill Clinton.
The performance supports When We All Vote, a non-partisan, non-profit organization co-chaired by former first lady Obama and stars including Tom Hanks, Miranda and Janelle Mone. The organization works to increase voter participation and close the race and age voting gaps in the US.
The critically acclaimed show won 29 Emmys during its run on NBC from 1999 to 2006. It popularised creator Aaron Sorkin’s groundbreaking “walk and talk” directorial style and, for some viewers at least, became something of a fantasy liberal retreat from the George W Bush era. A younger audience has since embraced the show on Netflix.
The reunion was filmed in October at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles with Covid protocols in place. Sterling K Brown, from the TV drama series This Is Us, stepped in to play chief of staff Leo McGary. The character was originally played by John Spencer,who died in 2005.
Though almost all of the show’s cast returned for the special, Sorkin maintained on a West Wing takeover of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert that “it’s not a reunion show” so much as a restaging with a motivational message.
“Over the years, I resisted the opportunities to do a reunion show,” he said. “But this opportunity came along to do something at a crucial time for When We All Vote, and so while it is a group of people coming back together after having not been together for awhile, it is not a reunion. It has a purpose.”
The Hartsfield’s Landing episode, which premiered as the 14th episode of season three in 2002, finds President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) sparring with both Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) and Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) over chess. Meanwhile, press secretary CJ Cregg (Alison Janney) and Charlie Young (Dulé Hill) go tit for tat in a prank war, while adviser Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) fixates on a primary election in New Hampshire.
The West Wing special is the latest in a string of cast reunions during America’s lockdowns to benefit various relief efforts, from sitcoms such as Parks and Recreation (which raised over $2.8m for Feeding America), The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Community to beloved dramas Friday Night Lights and nostalgic classics High School Musical and the 1980s staple The Goonies.
It arrives at HBO Max weeks after a long-gestating Friends reunion was postponed again due to ongoing Covid considerations. Friends alum Jennifer Aniston also recently appeared in another online special, a Zoom table read of Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Asked by Colbert how Sorkin views the show’s reception 20 years on, particularly its reputation as liberal so-called “competence porn”, Sorkin said he intended for the West Wing to be “a valentine to public service and to American institutions and democracy”.
“What we want to do is we’re aiming at a very narrow demographic – we want to move fans of the West Wing to the polls,” Sorkin later added.