On the DVD commentary for this episode, Aaron Sorkin recalls that during a break from the filming of Yo Yo Ma's performance scene, in an attempt to help his performance and "get into the rhythm" of the scene, Dulé Hill (who plays Charlie) started to tap dance to the cello piece. Hill is a highly accomplished professional tap dancer who has performed with Savion Glover and other tap luminaries.
Yo-Yo Ma plays a cello piece. Instead of miming the motions of the song to recorded music, however, he actually played the piece for each take. According to director Thomas Schlamme, this amounted to playing the song about forty-five times.
Bradley Whitford won the 2001 Best Supporting Actor Emmy Award, in part for his performance in this episode.
This episode was originally scheduled to be aired on December 13, 2000, but was pre-empted when Al Gore conceded the 2000 Presidential election to George W Bush.
When asked about three episodes to give someone that would give them an idea of The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin picked this episode along side with The West Wing: 17 People (2001), and The West Wing: Two Cathedrals (2001) -all from the second season.