The Farnsworth Invention
The Farnsworth Invention
Aaron Sorkin
It’s 1929. Two ambitious visionaries race against each other to invent a device called “television.” Separated by two thousand miles, each knows that if he stops working, even for a moment, the other will gain the edge. Who will unlock the key to the greatest innovation of the 20th century: the ruthless media mogul, or the self-taught Idaho farm-boy?
Available
2009
978-0-573-66286-7
Drama
Samuel French, Inc.
Aaron Sorkin
Born on July 9th, 1961, in New York City, Aaron Sorkin is a playwright, screenwriter, actor, producer and scriptwriter for television, as well as a director. Growing up in the suburb of Scarsdale, he developed an interest in theatre early on, initially as an actor. He graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre, where he was profoundly inspired by one of his professors, Arthur Storch, a former disciple of Lee Strasberg. In 1984, his first play, “Removing All Doubt”, was staged by Syracuse University’s students. Four years later, in 1988, his second script, “Hidden in This Picture”, was staged at Steve Olsen’s West Bank Cafe Downstairs Theatre Bar, in New York. The quality of these two scripts granted him an agent. His third play, “A Few Good Men”, was adapted into film by Castle Rock Entertainment after being on Broadway, premiering in 1992. Sorkin writes “Malice” and “The American President” for Castle Rock Entertainment as well.
In 1998, Disney’s production of “Sports Night” premiered on ABC, a comedy show for television based on an original idea by Sorkin, who wrote most of the scripts for the first two seasons. He became part of the production team for “The West Wing” in 1999, a series produced by Warner Bros Television for NBC. After writing the scripts for more than eighty episodes throughout the first four seasons, he left the project in 2003. Between 2005 and 2006, Sorkin wrote “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”, which was also produced by Warner Bros Television for NBC, which went on for only one season.
“The Farnsworth Invention” was initially written as a film script and later adapted for the stage at the request of The Abbey Theatre, in Dublin. In 2007, The Abbey Theatre abandoned the co-production with La Jolla Playhouse of San Diego, and the show ended up being produced by Steven Spielberg for that same venue, where it was performed between February and March of that year. It was then moved to Broadway, being performed at Music Box Theatre between December 2007 and March 2008.
Sorkin returned to film screenwriting in 2008, with “Charlie Wilson’s War”, “The Social Network” and “Moneyball”. In 2011, he began working on the series “The Newsroom”, for HBO, which premiered in 2012 and ran for three seasons. The film “Steve Jobs” was released in 2015, written by Sorkin, and his Broadway adaptation of the classic “To Kill a Mockingbird”, by Harper Lee, premiered the following year. Shortly after, he made his debut as a director with the movie “Molly’s Game”, which he also wrote. In 2020, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” premiered, also written and directed by Sorkin and later released on Netflix.
He won the Oscar for Adapted Screenplay in 2011 for “The Social Network”, was nominated for “Moneyball” the following year, and for “Molly’s Game” in 2017. In 2020, he receives a nomination for Best Original Screenplay for “The Trial of the Chicago 7”.
Aaron Sorkin also received nine nominations for the Golden Globes, having won the award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay three times, and was nominated for the British Academy Film Awards five times. He also received fourteen nominations for the Writers Guild of America Award and five for the Critic’s Choice Movie Awards. For his work in television, he was nominated nine times for the Primetime Emmy Awards.
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