The golden age of the radio comes to life in L.A. Theatre Works’ (LATW) new production: Top Secret: The Battle For the Pentagon Papers, coming to Spangenberg Oct. 26. The radio play details the 1966 controversy around The Washington Post’s decision to publish secrets about Vietnam suppressed by the American government. Stanford Lively Arts has been working with the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) to bring creative arts to the Gunn through this production.

Top Secret is not a traditional stage production. Instead, the actors will perform the piece in a live radio-theater style. “It would be as if you were sitting in a recording studio watching a live-radio broadcast,” Visual and Performing Arts Instructional Supervisor Todd Summers, who helped plan the event, said.

Stacy Keach, a well-known actor who first appeared on Broadway in 1969 and now plays Warden Henry Pope in Fox’s “Prison Break,” will lead the production. “We are very privileged to have such an amazing actor in this production,” Summers said.

Professional stage technicians will create sound effects to recreate the aural intensity of a radio show. Theater students are encouraged to attend the production as a complement to their creative studies. Stage tech students also benefit from the creative use of sound effects in the performance. “Sound effects and music contribute to the mood… [they] can either put an audience on the edge or calm them down after an intense scene,” junior Kanika Khanna, who has worked with stage tech since middle school, said.

Social studies teachers are also invited to bring their classes as a supplement to regular curriculum. Stanford Lively Arts is working with interested teachers to prepare their classes for the performance with a specialized production study guide, with emphasis on reporters’ First Amendment rights pitted against the government’s need for secrecy.

As a member of the Palo Alto Steering Committee for K-12 Arts, Summers hopes that this production will bring secondary school teachers into the partnership with Palo Alto and Stanford Lively Arts. “Last year we decided that this year would be the jumping off point for Gunn’s involvement,” Summers said.

Teachers can choose to implement as much or as little of the study guide as they wish. So far, six teachers and all theater classes have signed up for the performance. “The study guide emphasizes the curriculum core subjects of secondary schools,” LATW Producing Director Susan Lowenberg wrote in a letter to participating teachers. “It is organized to pose important questions and to develop significant study units inspired by the content of the play.”