“From the Midwest to the West Wing” was a phrase that once described Harry Truman.

That same expression can also characterize Alex Graves … though the specifics are a tad different.

Graves, an El Dorado native and former Kansas University student, is enjoying a steady gig in Hollywood with television’s “The West Wing.” He is both an executive producer of the show and its go-to director, as he proved Sunday in a special live episode of the series that had to be performed twice for different time zones.

The Emmy award-winning director will speak at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Dole Institute of Politics as part of the organization’s “Hollywood and Politics” lecture series.

“I’ve never seen the United States so foolishly divided over so little – that’s the first thing I thought of when I was asked to speak at the Dole Institute,” Graves says. “I thought, ‘How am I going to talk about that in Kansas – which is where I grew up – yet I live in California? I live in a different economy and culture now.'”

Graves, who is a Democrat but was raised in a staunchly Republican family, enjoys a powerful creative platform to explore differing viewpoints about government. Few shows on TV offer the chance each week to merge politics and fiction so effectively as “The West Wing.”

“For anyone in your job or my job, you think about media and politics a lot,” he says. “The reason we think about it a lot is that everybody knows it’s not functioning as well as it might because of a variety of factors – some of them economic, some political and most of them technological. We’re in the middle of this technological revolution, and the news and movies and home entertainment and the Internet are just spinning our heads around, as far as what we should watch, listen to and believe in.”

Kansas chronicle

Graves moved from El Dorado (where his father and sister still live) to Lawrence in 1983.

“I went freshman year to make my parents happy because I was trying so desperately to go to USC and go to film school, and I ran smack-dab into the best college experience I could have hoped for. Then I ended up being very sad that I had to leave KU because I was lucky enough to get into school out (in L.A.).”

His baptism into the cinematic world was immediate once he hit Lawrence.

“I studied a lot because (KU professor) Chuck Berg had outlined a very smart, very good, film-history-oriented curriculum that just knocked my socks off,” the 40-year-old says. “I saw some of the most important movies I’d ever seen in my life at KU, starting with ‘Citizen Kane.'”

Berg, who will conduct the Q&A session with Graves at the Dole Institute, says his former student displays a number of respectable skills.

“(Graves) has a keen intelligence, from sheer erudition to studio-smarts; a great understanding of human behavior, manifested in his richly nuanced characters as well as his obvious ability to deal with large – not inflated- egos; and a passion to tell cinematic stories that count.”

After graduating from film school, Graves returned to El Dorado to make “The Crude Oasis,” a moody character study set on the plains. The picture was picked up by Miramax in 1995 at the height of the independent film renaissance.

“My feature-film experience was extremely independent and low-budget,” he says. “I shot my first feature in 14 days, and we shoot ‘The West Wing’ in nine days. I had a budget of $25,000 on my feature, and we have a budget of $3 million an episode. It’s a lot easier to make ‘West Wing.'”

In 1997 he attempted one more movie, the Mark Harmon thriller “Casualties,” before diving headfirst into a steady career in episodic television. He found work at the helm of “Ally McBeal,” “The Practice” and “Sports Night” – the show Aaron Sorkin created prior to “The West Wing.”

Ratings challenge

Sunday’s live episode of “West Wing” garnered a lot of press and proved a real technological challenge for Graves. (“Suddenly we shifted into having to do a play,” he says.) But it also was an effort by the slipping NBC show to energize its ratings.

Graves’ celebrated series also is facing competition in its own conceptual backyard. ABC’s “woman in the presidency” show “Commander in Chief” is already pulling in more viewers.

“This isn’t meant to be pompous, but we don’t really think about ‘Commander in Chief,'” he explains. “It takes place in the same building, but it’s like saying, ‘Is “ER” competing with “Marcus Welby”?’ ‘Commander in Chief’ is supposed to be about the personal life of a female president. ‘West Wing’ is about the political life inside the White House. It’s almost dedicated to never going domestic with the president.

“I turned on ‘Commander in Chief’ one night, and the scene was about how (star Geena Davis’) daughter spilled juice on her shirt before she made an appearance. The good news is that’s not a scene we’re doing.”

– Entertainment editor Jon Niccum can be reached at 832-7178.