Aaron Sorkin goes back to Broadway
The September 3 edition of the Broadway magazine Playbill has a rundown of the upcoming season, including this item on Aaron Sorkin’s latest work for the stage:
“As for Aaron Sorkin, Broadway hasn’t seen hide nor hair of this golden boy since he made a name for himself in 1989 with the original A Few Good Men. He’s created a few good television series since then, including “Sports Night,” “The West Wing” and the recent “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.” The new play, called The Farnsworth Invention, is about a couple pivotal figures in the birth of that medium that has treated Sorkin so well: Philo T. Farnsworth, who came up with the idea for TV as a high school student, and David Sarnoff, the head of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). Previews begin Oct. 15 at the Music Box. Farnsworth will also be the first Broadway effort by a new producer named Stephen Spielberg.”
It’s nice to see Studio 60 mentioned as a “good television series,” and I hope Farnsworth finds success. Getting a play to succeed on Broadway these days seems to be even less of a sure thing than getting a TV series to fly. Most of the buzz I’ve heard about the play has been good, though, so there’s reason to hope.
And for those who don’t live close enough to NYC to catch a Broadway show — or, as in my case, couldn’t afford it if you did — there may be a movie version on the way. It was apparently supposed to be a movie in the first place, with Thomas Schlamme directing, but the film never got made and the script veered to the stage, where tickets cost as much as an actual television.
I’ll wait for the movie. But I’ll sure root for the play at the Tony Awards.
Studio 60, NBC, Aaron Sorkin, The Farnsworth Invention, Thomas Schlamme
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