Location

Second-Floor Auditorium — Old Executive Office Building (O.E.O.B.)

Fluorescent lights buzz over tiered seating and a compact stage where staff convert public performance into urgent logistics. The room smells of wet coats and paper; footsteps and breathy conversation ricochet off institutional walls as a rushed meeting of O.M.B. staff convenes downstairs. The auditorium functions as an improvised command arena for last-minute policy choreography and inter-agency bargaining, its cramped backstage leaking anxiety into adjacent corridors. Murmured directives and the shuffle of cue sheets give the space a taut, bureaucratic tension that propels pressure upward toward waiting offices on the floor above.

2 events

2 rich involvements

Detailed Involvements

Events with rich location context

S1E19 · Let Bartlet Be Bartlet

Magnificent Vista Misfire — Bartlet's Impulse vs. Caution

The Second Floor Auditorium is the cramped public venue that the team is hurriedly entering; it is the immediate stage where private disarray is exposed to a public audience and where Bartlet's offhand lines will be heard and scrutinized.

Atmosphere

Humid with nervous energy—fluorescent lights, murmured stage cues, and a sense of improvised staging after the outdoor plan was spoiled by rain.

Functional Role

Stage for public messaging and the arena that forces a private staff scramble into visible performance.

Symbolic Significance

A small civic stage that amplifies the contrast between presidential aspiration and operational unpreparedness.

Access Restrictions

Open to invited public attendees but strictly staged; entry and timing controlled by staff and Secret Service.

Fluorescent lighting over tiered seating Herald announcing the President's entry (OS) Murmurs of staff outside the door while the President speaks inside

S1E19 · Let Bartlet Be Bartlet

Bartlet Dangles for FEC Reform

The Second Floor Auditorium is the immediate destination and public stage — Bartlet moves inside to deliver remarks while the staff, just outside, process the political opening; it frames the divide between the theatrical presidency and the backstage policy scrimmage.

Atmosphere

Functional, slightly chaotic backstage with a formal, performative public space just beyond the door.

Functional Role

Stage for the President's public remarks and the battleground for messaging decisions spawned moments earlier in the hallway.

Symbolic Significance

Represents the public-facing theater of the presidency where private choices reverberate publicly; the doorway separates image from strategy.

Access Restrictions

Open to invited audience (the Trout Fishermen) but monitored and controlled; staff remain outside doorway while President is inside.

Fluorescent lighting on tiered seating Announcement over the auditorium sound system ('Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States!') Wet coats and hurried staff hovering at the door

Events at This Location

Everything that happens here

S1E19 · Let Bartlet Be Bartlet

Magnificent Vista Misfire — Bartlet's Impulse vs. Caution

On the way into a trout-fishermen event, a rain-soaked West Wing entourage mirrors the administration's disarray: Bartlet is irritable and restless, Mrs. Landingham steadies him, and the staff arrives unprepared …

S1E19 · Let Bartlet Be Bartlet

Bartlet Dangles for FEC Reform

Riding a wave of irritation from a humiliating public outing, Bartlet seizes a rare institutional opening when Josh reports two simultaneous F.E.C. resignations. Leo counsels defeatism — the Senate will …