Performing Arts Series Production Loses Star

BY VERONICA STRICKLER
OCT. 2, 2007

Live theater can be incredibly unpredictable -- long before the curtain even rises.

Stacey Keach, veteran television and film actor, has pulled out of his starring role in the touring production of “Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers,” which is scheduled to appear in Miami University’s Hall Auditorium Oct. 24.

Students who noticed flyers advertising “Top Secret” might have recognized Keach from his role as warden Henry Pope on the popular FOX drama “Prison Break,” though he is most famous forportraying the title character on the CBS series “Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer”. While no official cast list has been released, John Heard (also of “Prison Break”) has been tapped to take over Keach’s role, according to Miami officials.

Patti Liberatore, director of the Performing Arts Series, said Keach’s decision was partially caused by a looming actors’ strike in Hollywood, though no further explanation could be given. While she admits Keach’s dropping out of the production is inconvenient, Liberatore remains confident that “Top Secret” will be well received.

“He was just a quasi-recognizable name for some people,” Liberatore said. “I don’t know that it was a huge audience draw. I liked the idea that there was a recognizable name in it, but really what attracted me to the project was far more the content of the play and the issues that it takes on.”

What “Top Secret” takes on is the story of one of the most significant U.S. Supreme Court victories in the history of the American press.

The “Pentagon Papers” were commissioned by then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1966 to review the history of the U.S.’s involvement in Vietnam. Some sections of the report detailed efforts by the U.S. government to manipulate the media and military information. In 1971, the New York Times was leaked a copy of the “Pentagon Papers” and ran a series of excerpts from the classified document. Shortly after, the Times was hit with a federal injunction forbidding further publication on unprecedented grounds that the papers content posed a threat to national security. Shortly after, the Washington Post acquired a copy, and that is where the play picks up with Ben Bradlee, editor of the Post deliberating over publishing the document, and continues through the trial that ensued.

Given its journalistic, political and historical significance, a Social Justice Series performance of “Top Secret” is far from surprising. For professors seeking to find a fresh way for their students to connect with their curriculum, the play is goldmine.

“A lot of what we do is try and reach the students through their professors,” said David Sheldrick, assistant director of the Performing Arts Series. “A lot of student attendance we’re expecting to be from curricular ties. We’ve been talking with theater professors, journalism professors, poli-sci. We’ve got a couple of connections in there. Some are going to require their classes to attend and that’s really how we try to get the students to attend, and think about activities, and get involved.”

But for people like Liberatore, a former journalism student who is well aware that a growing number of college students get their news from Jon Stewart and not Brian Williams, the hope is that students will want to connect with “Top Secret” for their own benefit.

“What I would really, really hope is that people who are coming to this production are coming with a critical eye thinking, ‘What can I take away from this?’” Liberatore said. “I think theater can transcend any time.”

Sheldrick agrees, and also hopes students and professors will see the production’s relevance to current events.

“The Pentagon Papers, that Vietnam era, and arguably the biggest Supreme Court decision on freedom of the press...But it’s extremely relevant based on what’s going on today,” he said. “That was another key point to us bringing it in. It’s something that can really connect with everything going on right now.”

“When it comes to thinking about a lot of these issues, we’re sort of in a bubble,” Liberatore added. “Until it starts effecting us personally we can sort of live our lives and forget the fact that we’re at war. We might remember it when we go to fill up our gas tank.”

Additionally, issues like government accountability are key to social justice. The theme that ties together several projects from the School of Fine Arts this year.

“I think that politicians at all levels -- federal, state, local, as well as corporate leaders at all levels do look to the arts, not only for the way to answer certain questions but the way we ask the questions,” said William Doan, associate dean of the school. “I think smart and savvy leaders in various kinds of capacities, even if they don’t want to openly admit it, will secretly turn to the arts.”

Liberatore agrees. She believes that her job makes her responsible for presenting Miami’s student body with the type of art that spurs discussion and opens forums for important and controversial issues. That is why she pounced on “Top Secret.”

“I believe that art’s supposed to change your life,” Liberatore said. “Sometimes you have to challenge people. Sometimes you can do things artistically and accomplish things that can’t be accomplished any other way. Maybe seeing something on-stage which is sort of not real makes it easier to think about the real thing that it’s portraying.”