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May 02, 2004
Cast members of NBC's 'The West Wing' portray land mine survivors in play
By PAUL CHAVEZ
Associated Press
Cast members from NBC's "The West Wing" will depict actual land mine survivors Monday night in a play that focuses on the resiliency of the human spirit.
Martin Sheen, who plays the fictional President Josiah Bartlett on the political drama, will be joined by castmates Stockard Channing, John Spencer, Richard Schiff and Mary McCormack in the fund-raiser for the Landmine Survivors Network.
The nonprofit Washington D.C.-based group was created by and for land mine survivors to offer peer support and to advocate for the elimination of land mines and discrimination against the disabled, said Jerry White, the group's co-founder and executive director.
White, 40, was visiting Israel in April 1984 during his junior year at Brown University and camped in an unmarked mine field in the Golan Heights.
"I stepped on a land mine and everything exploded and it was my introduction to what a land mine was," said White, whose right foot was blown off.
White said he stayed in Israel for his rehabilitation largely because there were other amputees who served as role models.
He finished his studies at Brown and became a weapons nonproliferation analyst for a Washington D.C. think tank that tracked weapons of mass destruction. After a 15-year career, he turned his attention to land mines and the group was formally incorporated in 1997.
"Land mines kill more people than chemical and nuclear weapons combined," he said. "Every 22 minutes someone around the world gets blown up by one."
His cousin, Aly Feltes, a Canadian television producer, wrote the play "Raising Our Voices" to support the group's cause, White said.
"It's a celebration of the resilience of survivors around the world," White said. "We're in the business of putting things back together again and giving an opportunity for people to get back into the game."
Dee Dee Myers, the former press secretary to President Clinton, is a member of the Landmine Survivors Network's board of directors and a consultant to "The West Wing." She pitched the play idea to the show's cast and they agreed to lend their voices, White said
About 300 people are expected at the fund-raiser Monday night at the Skirball Cultural Center.
White, who lives in Silver Spring, Md., with his wife and four children, will be attending the celebrity-studded event.
"I'm also making my acting debut," he said. "I play myself in the play."
Posted by Jo at May 2, 2004 09:38 AM