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Around 1990, Susan Loewenberg was talking with attorney Geoffrey Cowan about some business for the L.A. Theatre Works, where she is the producing director, when he mentioned that he had written a play about what happened when the Washington Post set out to publish a top-secret study documenting the United States’ involvement in Vietnam.

The epic legal battle between the government and the press eventually ended up being argued before the Supreme Court and is often considered the most important case ever on freedom of the press.

Although Cowan’s play was a “rip-roaring journalistic thriller,” meticulously researched and co-written with a former Post editor, she wasn’t sure what — if anything — to do with it.

“But then the Gulf War broke out and there were big discussions about the people’s right to know,” she said.

Working out a deal with National Public Radio to support a series of community forums and panel discussions to accompany a reader’s theater production of “Top Secret.”

More than 15 years later, right-to-know issues have come up again in the context of yet another war, so it seemed right to stage a revival, particularly since so many younger people don’t know what happened in the original case.

“It’s great material for a non-partisan discussion becaue it’s a documentary about what really happened,” Loewenberg said.

The current incarnation of “Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers,” stars Gregory Harrison, John Heard, and  John Vickery.

“John Heard absolutely channels Ben Bradlee,” the Post’s executive editor at the time,” Loewenberg said. “He really captures this dynamic jouralist who was very ambition to make the Post a national paper.”

• WHAT: L.A. Theatre Works presents “Top Secret: The Battle For The Pentagon Papers” by Geoffrey Cowan and Leroy Aarons
• WHERE: Hall Auditorium, Miami University, Oxford
• WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday
• COST: $20 adults, $19 senior citizens, $9 students/youth
• MORE INFO: (513) 529-3200; tickets.muohio.edu