The World Rejoices as Richard Schiff Releases Alexandra Silber’s “The West Wing Song”

Richard Schiff (center) puts a knife to "The West Wing Song" with his co-conspirators: David Babani (left) and Alexandra Silber (right). — Richard Schiff (center) puts a knife to “The West Wing Song” with his co-conspirators: David Babani (left) and Alexandra Silber (right).
(Photo courtesy of Alexandra Silber)

After a truly nail-biting two weeks, Glengarry Glen Ross star Richard Schiff, perhaps best known as Toby Ziegler on the hit NBC drama The West Wing, has released his hostage.

Broadway and West End veteran Alexandra Silber‘s “The West Wing Song,” with lyrics set to W.G. Snuffy Walden’s Emmy-winning West Wing theme, found its way back into society on Sunday, November 11, shortly before 11:30am.

Over the past two weeks of the hostage situation, Silber and Schiff’s Twitter followers and famous friends lobbied for the song’s safe return. West End stage actress Emma Williams submitted this poem, written in iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets. Tony Award-nominee Manoel Felciano (Tobias in John Doyle’s Sweeney Todd revival) submitted this acrostic sonnet. And, as TheaterMania reported, even Aaron Sorkin, the allegedly internet hating, Oscar and Emmy-winning creator of The West Wing, joined the good fight.

Silber believes her confessional video is required watching before you view the original “The West Wing Song” in all its glory below.

UPDATE: Sunday, November 11 at 12:05pm

Following the video’s safe release, Silber gave TheaterMania the following statement:

“This is one of the great things that can come from creative types hanging out together. That, in the face of a sometimes tough industry, in the middle of a recession, a historically crucial election, plus a truly horrifying natural disaster in the Northeast of America, we were all able (in the face of all the legitimately serious) to play. To laugh. To have a bit of fun. Art is about catharsis, yes, social responsibility, yes, but also about entertainment. Enjoyment. A celebration of some kind. I do, and have always believed, it is called a “play” for a reason.”