Sorkin's 'Invention' Headed for Bway; Speilberg Produces?

Aaron Sorkin's The Farnsworth Invention will receive a Broadway transfer this November, with Steven Speilberg likely on the play's producing team, according to Variety.  As he did for its developmental production at San Diego's La Jolla Playhouse, Tony Award-winner Des McAnuff (Jersey Boys, The Who's Tommy) will direct.

Sorkin is well-known for TV hits such as "The West Wing" and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," as well as his play A Few Good Men.  Speilberg, whose many successes as a director and/or producer include Jaws, E.T., Jurassic Park and Schindler's List, "is expected to" join Dodger Theatricals (Jersey Boys) on The Farnsworth Invention's producing team.

"Dodger will be principal producer on Farnsworth, with the breakdown of co-producers and associate producers not yet fully determined. Spielberg's involvement as an investor -- the filmmaker's first stake in a stage venture -- has been public knowledge since the La Jolla run," states the article.

The Farnsworth Invention ran in March of 2007 at La Jolla Playhouse as part of the theatre's Page To Stage Workshop Production series.  "The play centers on the bitter conflict that pitted Philo T. Farnsworth, a boy genius who invented television as a high school student in 1927, against David Sarnoff, the head of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). The legal battle between Farnsworth and RCA would later become known as one of the great, tragic examples of legal and industrial force combining to crush a rightful patent owner," stated La Jolla notes. 

No casting has been announced for The Farnsworth Invention, which was originally conceived as a screenplay.  Variety writes: "Some of the La Jolla cast may be signed up for the Broadway staging, but no elements have yet been confirmed."  The Farnsworth Invention's developmental production had starred Jimmi Simpson as Farnsworth and Stephen Lang as Sarnoff.

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Photos - Aaron Sorkin and Steven Speilberg