October 26, 1972

Sponsored by the McGovern for President Committee, movie actress Piper Laurie performed in Skinner Hall in Once to Every Man and Nation, a play by Howard Koch, the author of the scripts for the movies Casablanca (1942) and The Hustler (1961) and of Orson Welles’s 1938 “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast. Taking its title from the patriotic hymn written by James Russell Lowell in 1845 to protest American annexation of Texas and the looming war with Mexico, Koch’s play used news clips and current songs, in the “living newspaper” style pioneered by Hallie Flanagan, to portray the horror of the war in Vietnam.

Ms. Laurie performed the play at the State University of New York at Albany, again sponsored by the McGovern committee, on November 3.