Wall Street Journal reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were only 29 and 28 respectfully when they embarked on the unfolding of the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon. Speaking to the well-heeled donors at a benefit at Guild Hall this week, for a staged reading of All the President’s Men, a screenplay based on their book, they spoke about how youth and naivete led them to make the mistakes and discoveries that led to the truth, important ingredients for free press. Woodward said he still uses the same strategy of knocking on people’s doors to speak to them. If he leaves at 9, he may be home by 9:30 if a door is slammed in his face.

After they wrote the book, Robert Redford came calling. They hung up on him, as you do when Hollywood comes your way. But Redford insisted on making the film as a buddy movie: two guys with opposite personalities working together to make something historic. His persistence paid off. Behind Woodward and Bernstein on the Guild Hall stage were the A-list actors reading their lines. Robert Downey Jr. and Ramy Youssef led this cast–that also included Gwyneth Paltrow, Talia Balsam, Andy Cohen, Corey Hawkins, Kenneth Lonergan, J. Smith-Cameron, to name a few– in the reading directed by John Benjamin Hickey and dedicated to Mark Brokaw. The cast included Victor Garber as Deep Throat, and the Wall Street Journal team led by Nathan Lane as Ben Bradlee, Mark Ruffalo as Harry Rosenfeld, and Julianne Moore as Katherine Graham. Bernstein told a story about her, how she subpoenaed his files claiming his notes belonged to her. She feared the police would come to arrest them, and she wanted to take the fall. Much humor ensued imagining her driven to a Washington women’s prison in her limo.

The matching of this project to save West Park Presbyterian Church on 86^th Street and Broadway at this moment in our history could not be more apt. The historic church was where Joe Papp incubated his ideas about the public theater, where today community comes together to inspire young artists, playwrights, dancers, and actors like those on the stage. When M.C. Alec Baldwin asked Wendell Pierce why he got involved, the actor told his story of his New Orleans neighborhood being the worst flooded during Hurricane Katrina. This being the 20^th anniversary, he remembered his effort in rebuilding his community, house by house.

Landmarked, the brick church with its stained glass, and period detail, should of course be protected from the developers who want to strip the space from its history to some commercial urban tower. All of these protections are threatened, said Mark Ruffalo in an impassioned speech about why he has gathered an army of celebrities to fight against the crass cruelty of our current political moment. Nixon was bad, they concurred. Now is worse. Closing, Bob Woodward recounted the final words of Nixon resigning in a brief flash of self-reflection: remember, it’s the hate inside that kills you.