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[0:39] Gordon Cox: Welcome to Stagecraft, Variety's Theater Podcast, bringing you backstage and behind the scenes with the stars and creators of the hottest shows on Broadway, off Broadway, and beyond. I'm your host, Gordon Cox. On this episode of Stagecraft, I'm talking to Aaron Sorkin. He's someone who doesn't need much introduction, especially not to theater fans, since his breakout work was the play A Few Good Men, which premiered at the Kennedy Center in 1989 and went on to a Broadway run, and then, of course, to the movies in 1992 film version that starred Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. Since then, Sorkin created TV's The West Wing, still hugely popular despite having ended its seven season run way back in 2006, as well as Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and The Newsroom.

He's also written films like The Social Network, Moneyball, and Steve Jobs, and made his film directorial debut with the starry Molly's Game. Now, of course, he's back on Broadway as the writer of a hit new stage version of one of the most famous and beloved titles in American literature, To Kill a Mockingbird. We spoke just prior to the Tony nominations about the process of adapting a classic. Hey Aaron, thanks for being here.

[1:48] Aaron Sorkin: Oh, thanks for having me, Gordon.

[1:50] Gordon Cox: So two of the cast members of To Kill a Mockingbird were on the podcast somewhat recently, and they were talking about Cecilia and Gideon.

[1:50] Aaron Sorkin: Exactly.

[1:50] Gordon Cox: And they were talking about the sort of challenges and rewards of thinking of To Kill a Mockingbird as a new play and not, you know, a hugely influential novel that we all read in school. Was that did that mirror at all how you ended up having to approach it as you were writing, as you were approaching it as a writer?

[2:18] Aaron Sorkin: Yeah, it does. When I started out, I was very—I thought it was a suicide mission.

[2:28] Gordon Cox: You say yes, I guess is the question.

[2:31] Aaron Sorkin: I said yes because the opportunity to be back in a theater doing a play was just much too great. I was willing to be a suicide victim.

[2:31] Gordon Cox: Okay.

[2:45] Aaron Sorkin: But you know, I thought starting out the best I can do is not ruin it.

[2:45] Gordon Cox: Right.

[2:53] Aaron Sorkin: So my first draft was terrible.

[2:53] Gordon Cox: Right.

[2:55] Aaron Sorkin: How so?

[2:57] Aaron Sorkin: I had taken this basically the scenes from the book that were most important in terms of telling the story, and I stood them up and had, you know, instead of being described by Harper Lee, they're actors talking to each other. And the best you could say about it really was that it was harmless, which is probably the worst thing you could say about any play, particularly To Kill a Mockingbird.

[2:57] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[3:22] Aaron Sorkin: And it was like a greatest hits album performed by a tribute band, you know. And I was so frustrated by the draft that I had just written. And after a conversation with Scott Rudin, a producer.

[3:41] Gordon Cox: Who secured the rights initially and approached you with the—

[3:44] Aaron Sorkin: He called me one day and said, "We've got some really exciting news." After several years of trying, I've secured the stage rights to Kill a Mockingbird.

[3:52] Gordon Cox: Um, you foolishly said yes.

[3:54] Aaron Sorkin: And I did. After that first draft, what I did was I stopped using the word adaptation. I followed—I was lucky enough to be taken under William Goldman's wing when I was in my twenties. And we remained close until he died a few months ago. And Goldman's advice on adaptations always was, "You gotta fall out of love with the source material." Well, there wasn't any chance I was gonna fall out of love with To Kill a Mockingbird, but I stopped using the word adaptation. My goal was no longer to lovingly swallow the book in bubble wrap and gently transfer it to a stage. I was gonna write a new play. I was gonna take the circumstances of the book and I was gonna write a new play. I wasn't gonna pretend that I was writing the play in 1960, and I wasn't going to try to do a Harper Lee impersonation. There was just nothing to be gained there. I wasn't gonna do Harper Lee better than Harper Lee does Harper Lee. So I wrote a new play.

[5:04] Gordon Cox: Right. And so you initially though, your relationship to the novel was the same as all of ours, right? You read it as a child and you knew it—

[5:10] Aaron Sorkin: I read it in seventh, eighth, ninth grade, whatever it was we read it. Saw the movie many, many times. Then once I went back to it, after, like I said, there was that first try that got me nowhere. And once I went back to it, I suddenly had a different relationship to the novel, which is I was—there were things that were troubling me, and I was sort of doubly troubled because I hadn't been troubled by them before.

[5:50] Gordon Cox: Can you give us an example?

[5:51] Aaron Sorkin: Yeah, I'll give you a couple. My favorite scene from the book, my favorite scene from the movie, I think it's a lot of people's favorite scene from the book and the movie, the end of the trial. Atticus is packing up his briefcase, the courtroom has emptied out, except for everybody up in the balcony, what they called the colored section. He turns around and he sees that they're all standing in silent respect for Atticus, and Reverend Sykes turns to Scout and says, "Miss Jean Louise, stand up, your daddy's passing." That scene I always would choke up, I'd get tears in my eyes. My father would choke up, he'd get tears in my eyes. He and I always talked about that scene, and my father is a die-in-the-wall bow tie wearing liberal intellectual.

So how can my father be wrong about anything? And so I just began diagnostically trying to figure out why is it I love this scene so much. What's—it's a good movie scene, there's no question about it, I get that. But what's going on? What's happening that I love this scene? And I realized that what it was was that those people standing in the colored section should be burning the courthouse down. They should be rioting in the streets. They should be chanting "no justice, no peace." But instead they are standing silently, docile, in gratitude to the white liberal guy for being one of the good ones. And isn't that what we all want to be identified by any marginalized group of people as he's one of the good ones?

And I was troubled by that. I didn't suddenly blame my father or anything. I didn't blame any of us, but I was troubled by that. And so in the play, I turned that upside down. I don't want to give away too many spoilers, but in Atticus's relationship with Calpurnia, I've kind of faced that head on.

[7:59] Gordon Cox: Yeah, for people who have seen it, it's the link to what you were just describing and the kind of efforts you make to ensure that all the characters have a voice, including African American characters.

[8:19] Aaron Sorkin: Well, that was another thing, which is that in the book there are only really two significant African American characters: there's Calpurnia, the maid, and there's Tom Robinson, the accused. And in this story about enormous racial friction in the Jim Crow South, neither of the African American characters really have very much to say about it, and they certainly don't have any agency. Calpurnia is most concerned with whether Scout's going to wear overalls or a dress to school. And Tom Robinson gets to plead for his life, and that's it. And so I thought, well, you know, again, in 1960, using African American characters only as atmosphere is the kind of thing that would go largely unnoticed—largely unnoticed, though not entirely unnoticed, and I'll get to that in a second.

But in 2019, today, it's not only wrong, but it's a wasted opportunity. You want to hear from these two characters, you want to give them agency, and whatever it is they have to say, I mean, you want it thrown into the pot and stirred around. And so Calpurnia now is kind of—listen, Bob Ewell's the antagonist, but Calpurnia is kind of an intellectual antagonist. It's—it obviously has a great emotional foundation. Robinson, what in the book and in the movie is a simple mistake that he makes on the stand, it wouldn't be a mistake in any other day and age, but in this at this time in this place, he says that he felt sorry for someone who is white, and the white jurors take great offense to his feeling sorry for a white person. In the play, it's not a mistake. You say I'm allowed to curse?

[10:25] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[10:26] Aaron Sorkin: It's "fuck you." It's Tom Robinson taking this one moment. He's getting absolutely, you know, hounded by the prosecutor, by Gilmer, as being called "boy," he's being disrespected, there's this continued ugly suggestion that he's a sexual predator who, you know, is leering at Mayella. And you know, he's just been in jail for seven months waiting for this trial. You know, he's even been told to say what to say by Atticus. So this is Tom Robinson grabbing for one chance at self-determination, or what Atticus simply calls dignity, that a man will have his dignity.

[11:14] Gordon Cox: So there was that.

[11:17] Aaron Sorkin: Right.

[11:18] Gordon Cox: And did that feel like a massive departure to you as you were doing it? Was there an understanding because, you know, for a while the Harper Lee estate considered it a massive departure from what it sounds like from the legal situation that has now been resolved.

[11:31] Aaron Sorkin: But it has been resolved.

[11:33] Gordon Cox: Okay. Did it seem like a big turn for you, I guess, as you were doing it?

[11:39] Aaron Sorkin: It didn't.

[11:40] And do you think of it as one now, I guess also?

[11:42] I well listen. Uh on the one hand, it's as big a turn as there can be.

[11:48] Yeah, right. Um, and yet you achieve it with just a quarter turn of the wrench.

[11:55] Right. Um and same thing with Cal Purnia, same thing's with the same thing with a lot of them.

[12:03] Um did I consider it a big departure? Uh let me put it this way.

[12:08] I really didn't care one way or another because again, I was no longer judging how I was doing so far with this based on how close I was to the book.

[12:22] I was just judging it based on its merits as a play. Um as far as the Harper Lee estate goes and by the way when we're talking about the Harper Lee Estate we're talking about one person.

[12:33] Her name is Tanya Carter and she had you know in making Atticus, Atticus is not the protagonist in the book, Scout is the protagonist right?

[12:33] A protagonist has to change somehow, they have to have a flaw, and they have to be put through something and they have to change as a result.

[12:33] Atticus doesn't do that, he's made out of marble and he's the same at the beginning as he is at the end, a point even Harper Lee makes at the end of the book.

[12:33] She ends the book by saying you know Atticus is sitting over Jem's bed, he's been given a sedative, he'll be asleep for the night before they take him to the hospital, and the book ends with Harper Lee or Scout really saying that Atticus was sitting over Jem's bed and that's where he would be in the morning.

[13:29] In other words, a steady faultless GPS is Atticus, a nice thing to write about but I wanted Atticus to be the protagonist in the play and that's not drama right?

[13:29] That's not exactly it, there are different rules for a play. The rules for drama were set out by Aristotle in 350 BC when he wrote the Poetics.

[13:52] The rules of drama are four centuries older than Christianity, so you have to follow them.

[13:56] Yeah. Um and so I had to give Atticus a flaw now.

[14:05] Uh and Atticus had to change.

[14:07] And Atticus's flaw is the qualities I didn't give him flaws.

[14:14] I simply took things that we learned when we were reading the book in school, took things that we had regarded as virtues, and looked at it a different way.

[14:26] For instance, Atticus says that there's goodness in everyone.

[14:29] All you have to do is crawl around inside someone's skin.

[14:32] Um that sounds like a really nice sentiment.

[14:37] Um it also sounds like there were fine people on both sides.

[14:41] Right. Uh so what do we do with that?

[14:43] Which is a more contemporary reference as for listeners who maybe that was going on as you were writing it, right?

[14:49] Exactly. I um listen, I'd prefer that that moment in time didn't happen.

[14:57] Yeah. Um I'm talking about the Trump press conference.

[15:01] Obviously, I'd prefer that Heather Heyer not.

[15:04] Of course, right.

[15:05] Yeah. Uh but boy, when it happened, I was able to write some scenes.

[15:15] Yeah.

[15:17] And so playing Atticus is an actor you've worked with before on Newsroom and other projects.

[15:25] What was useful about having? And it sounds like you went to Jeff Daniels early in your sort of thinking about this project.

[15:33] Is this what was useful about having an actor you've worked with before, in particular Jeff, in your mind as you were considering Atticus?

[15:40] First, there was never a conversation about any other actor.

[15:44] In fact, in that very first phone call from Scott, the very first call, the conversation ended with Scott saying, and we'll do it with Jeff, right?

[15:53] And I said, Yeah. Sure.

[15:54] Um and that was that.

[15:56] Uh it's like we weren't even bothering to ask Jeff if it was okay with him.

[16:01] He didn't know it, but you're going to be playing Atticus.

[16:05] Right.

[16:08] And listen, there are a lot of reasons.

[16:13] It's great working with Jeff. He is one of the very finest actors we have.

[16:20] His facility with language, his gravitas, his humor.

[16:28] But I also knew that as a company member he was going to be a great leader.

[16:28] He was going to be somebody people didn't want to disappoint.

[16:40] Like Atticus himself.

[16:41] Exactly.

[16:44] If anything surprised me, it's that as dearly as I love Jeff, as much as I admire him, and as much as I you know, you want to cast him in everything.

[17:13] We had three separate labs in a sub basement at Lincoln Center, and then six weeks of rehearsal and then six weeks of previews before we opened.

[17:23] Now I've seen Jeff on the set of the Newsroom nail down a scene in a morning.

[17:29] I've seen Jeff with the shooting rehearsal schedule that we had on Steve Jobs, where we would rehearse for 10 days, then shoot that, then rehearse for 10 days, then shoot that.

[17:41] I've seen Jeff you know, basically what Jeff the Shark gets as big as the tank.

[17:46] He's got ten days to work, he's gonna use all ten days.

[17:51] Watching him have six months, knowing that the performance he gave at the first table read could have been his opening night performance, and people would have thought it was brilliant.

[18:02] Um but watching him take every day of that six months, really closer to nine months, until previews started, just a couple of days into previews.

[18:18] Uh he just exploded onto the stage or the Schubert, put the audience in his pocket and didn't let him go until the play was over.

[18:29] It was a sight to see, boy.

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[19:11] You alluded to this early on as we started talking about the reason one of the reasons you said yes as quickly as you did to Mockingbird is that you were just itching to get back on stage.

[19:23] Tell us about that and that impulse.

[19:24] Well, you know, all I I'm an accidental writer of movies and television shows.

[19:29] All I ever a very happy accident, believe me.

[19:32] Right.

[19:32] But all I ever wanted to be was a playwright.

[19:36] I after college I came to New York to start my life as a struggling writer.

[19:41] And I only ever wanted to be a professional playwright which is to say if I could pay my rent, pay my phone bill with money that I made writing that to me would be an impossible dream realized.

[20:00] So everything else is delicious gravy is what it is.

[20:12] I went to LA, my first play was A Few Good Men.

[20:15] Yep.

[20:15] I was very young when I wrote it.

[20:17] Went out to LA to do the film adaptation and it's the oldest story in the book.

[20:22] You're gonna come right back to do your second play but you get tempted by another movie and then another movie and then I got tempted by a television series and then another television series and none of these television series did I expect to last very long.

[20:38] I thought well once I've written the West Wing pilot that'll do that.

[20:42] No one's gonna put this on TV and four years later.

[20:46] Um so I've been twenty-seven years since my Broadway debut with A Few Good Men.

[21:02] And this is only my third play.

[21:03] Yeah, because Farnsworth Invention was what, a dozen years ago ish?

[21:07] Eleven or twelve, I think.

[21:09] Right.

[21:10] And I would like to have written more plays than that.

[21:13] But listen, I'm not gonna get grumpy because I got waylaid writing some movies and television shows that I love.

[21:22] Right.

[21:22] I'm as proud of those as anything.

[21:24] Yeah.

[21:25] But I'm most comfortable in a theater.

[21:28] I still feel out of place in LA.

[21:29] I still feel out of place on a movie set.

[21:31] Um I'm most comfortable in a rehearsal room where the set is taped out on the floor.

[21:36] Uh and whether it is a 99-seat church basement or the 1500-seat Schubert Theater, which is the Carnegie Hall of Broadway.

[21:47] Yeah, um I'm so happy just pacing the back of the orchestra during previews.

[21:53] What do you have a sense of what theater allows you to do as a writer that you aren't able to do in film and television?

[22:00] What it kind of creatively lets you do?

[22:03] Well, first of all, I like doing things in a theater that you can only do in a theater.

[22:11] Right.

[22:12] Um there's a lot of stagecraft in To Kill a Mockingbird.

[22:17] Yes.

[22:17] Uh both because Bart Scher is the director.

[22:20] Yeah.

[22:21] Our director, who uh he's a brilliant stage director who in his spare time directs operas for the Met.

[22:29] So there's an enormous theatricality to it.

[22:31] Our set designer, Miriam Buther, lighting designer Jennifer Tipton, costume designer Ann Roth, sound designer Scott Lair.

[22:38] Um and I'm sorry for these are four very important names to us because they are also four co-authors of this production.

[22:49] I like Stagecraft a lot.

[22:52] That's the name of this podcast.

[22:54] Yeah.

[22:55] Ironically, when I write a movie or an episode of television, when I should be getting more cinematic I like enclosed spaces.

[23:08] Uh I like as sh you know they tell you when you get a new dog, when you get a new puppy, you should get a crate that's just big enough for the puppy to be able to turn around in but no bigger because they like the security of those four walls.

[23:26] Aaron Sorkin: Right.

[23:27] Gordon Cox: So do I.

[23:28] Aaron Sorkin: That's why, you know, if in the movies and television that I write, things mostly take place in offices.

[23:35] Gordon Cox: Right.

[23:35] Aaron Sorkin: Um, hallways, to be fair. You know, while moving in the hallway.

[23:39] Aaron Sorkin: Moving in the hallway happened as a reaction, as a Thomas Schlamy reaction.

[23:44] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[23:45] Aaron Sorkin: Uh, uh, Tommy was the executive producer, principal director on Sports Night, The West Wing, and Studio 60.

[23:52] Gordon Cox: Right.

[23:53] Aaron Sorkin: It happened as a Tommy reaction to all these scenes I was writing in offices. Yeah, you can't just have people sitting around chatting. You would say we need some visual interest here. Would you mind, would it be okay with you if I had them get up, walk down the hall, get a cup of coffee, uh, and then walk back to the office while they're doing all this? Sure.

[24:10] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[24:10] Aaron Sorkin: Um, and, uh, so I'm the talk part of the walk and talk. Tommy was the walk part of the walk and talk.

[24:16] Gordon Cox: Right.

[24:16] Aaron Sorkin: Um, anyway, uh, I have forgotten, Gordon, what your question was.

[24:23] Gordon Cox: Well, I was talking about, actually, you just sort of answered it. It's sort of what you can do in theater that you're not allowed to do.

[24:29] Gordon Cox: What, and that is you can sit in a room if you want to, right? And then you can also, um, employ sort of stagecraft.

[24:36] Gordon Cox: Right, in a new kind of transitions in a different way. Twenty-four actors, some of whom are playing characters that have them walk downstage and sing a Methodist hymn as the penultimate moment in the show.

[24:51] Aaron Sorkin: It's theatrical. You can have, uh, uh, listen. The opening moments of To Kill a Mockingbird are designed to do something, uh, in particular.

[25:03] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[25:03] Aaron Sorkin: When the curtain goes up, and it's not actually a curtain at all, it's a wall, uh, that surprises when it goes up. You're surprised to see what you're looking at.

[25:14] Aaron Sorkin: Um, we, we, one of the things that was kind of fun, uh, is we knew that most people, uh, coming into the theater have read To Kill a Mockingbird or seen the movie or both. It was fun leveraging those expectations. So that front wall goes up, and they think they're gonna be looking at a front porch, a bucolic rural street, maybe a courtroom, who knows. They're not.

[25:39] Aaron Sorkin: They're looking at what kind of seems like the set where Childish Gambino did "This Is America."

[25:47] Gordon Cox: Um, that's true.

[25:48] Aaron Sorkin: Yeah, that's sort of a big warehouse space. That hasn't been visited in 60 years.

[25:55] Gordon Cox: Okay.

[25:55] Aaron Sorkin: There are some broken windows, the, uh, the paint is peeling. And, uh, there are these three actors, and they start talking to the audience. And the first line of the play is something didn't seem right. Uh, something didn't have to be right. I'm sorry, something didn't make sense.

[26:09] Gordon Cox: Right, right.

[26:10] Aaron Sorkin: Um, we are saying to the audience right away, forget everything, uh, that you came in here with.

[26:18] Gordon Cox: Right.

[26:18] Aaron Sorkin: Um, uh, they're about to have an argument about what happens at the end of the book and could it have, uh, uh, possibly happened. Um, so that's something you can do in the theater that you can't do.

[26:31] Aaron Sorkin: But, uh, when you start writing a play, I mean, I had this experience with Farnsworth. When you start writing a play after you've done a bunch of screenplays, uh, in a row, uh, the first thing is that you miss the things that you can do in a screenplay.

[26:49] Aaron Sorkin: One thing you can't do, you know, in a movie, I can direct the audience's attention simply by having the camera on you, and it can do a slow push-in, which now puts us inside your head while other people are talking on screen. I can't direct the audience's attention, uh, uh, with a play. They're going to look at whoever is talking.

[27:06] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[27:07] Aaron Sorkin: That's true.

[27:08] Gordon Cox: Um, had you, Mockingbird, of course, also existed as another play. Had you ever seen it in your theater growing career?

[27:15] Aaron Sorkin: No, I've never seen it. Uh, I've never seen it. I never read it.

[27:18] Gordon Cox: That was on purpose.

[27:19] Aaron Sorkin: I figured, uh, you know, we're working off the same source material. We're bound to write scenes that are, uh, similar, uh, in some way, and I want to be able to truthfully say that I've never read the book. Uh, sorry, never, uh, seen the book.

[27:35] Aaron Sorkin: Uh, I also did not read Go Set a Watchman.

[27:38] Gordon Cox: Okay, yeah.

[27:39] Aaron Sorkin: Um, just the, uh, sequel previously. The prequel sequel. It was the first draft of it was the rejected first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird.

[27:47] Gordon Cox: Um, because I wanted to be able to truthfully say to you that I've never read Go Set a Watchman.

[27:54] Gordon Cox: Right.

[27:54] Aaron Sorkin: Right.

[27:54] Aaron Sorkin: Yeah. Um, do you, do you get asked, speaking of TV, do you get asked about a West Wing revival essentially every day of your life? Does it feel like it?

[28:05] Aaron Sorkin: I don't mind.

[28:07] Gordon Cox: Do you not?

[28:08] Aaron Sorkin: All right. Well, um, tell me your thoughts about a West Wing revival. Is that, you must have been asked.

[28:16] Aaron Sorkin: Yeah, sure. I've been asked by NBC, by Warner Brothers, and I'm very flattered by that invitation. It's an open invitation.

[28:24] Aaron Sorkin: And, uh, and my answer is always the same. If I can think of an idea that, uh, that has a chance of working, I'd love to get back together with those people and, uh, and those characters and do something, but I can't at the moment think of anything that won't feel like a very Brady Christmas.

[28:44] Gordon Cox: Right.

[28:45] Aaron Sorkin: Yeah.

[28:46] Aaron Sorkin: Um, another, uh, project of yours, The Social Network, which is now almost 10 years old. I was, uh, looking at the, um, is of course about, uh, Mark Zuckerberg, and, um, and he is obviously even more prominent than he was, you know, ten years ago. Does that, has your work on him as a character affected how you sort of watch what's playing out now?

[29:11] Aaron Sorkin: You know, I can't help but think about it a little bit. I, I've, I've, I think a different relationship to Facebook, uh, than most people do because, uh, uh, I wrote that movie.

[29:19] Gordon Cox: You've thought about it in a completely different way, right?

[29:21] Aaron Sorkin: Yeah. Uh, now what's happening now, uh, is dramatic, uh, and dramatizable, and, uh, so, uh, I, I, I don't want to make any news, uh, of course not, but, uh, uh, I do watch it and, uh, and think is, you know, uh, is there a follow-up?

[29:42] Gordon Cox: Right.

[29:43] Aaron Sorkin: Uh, a follow-up to the film.

[29:44] Gordon Cox: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[29:45] Aaron Sorkin: Yeah, yeah.

[29:46] Aaron Sorkin: Right. Speaking of films, uh, you recently started directing. Uh, you did, I mean, I guess it wasn't that recent. It was now a few years ago. It was Molly's Game.

[29:55] Gordon Cox: Well, the movie came out last year, and I, we made it the year before.

[29:58] Aaron Sorkin: Right, yeah. Um, and you're working on another movie now with a great cast. Tell us a little bit about that.

[30:02] Aaron Sorkin: I think we're talking about The Trial of the Chicago 7.

[30:04] Gordon Cox: Yes.

[31:04] Gordon Cox: Why did you decide to start directing? Why was that something you wanted to, uh, start directing film?

[31:04] Aaron Sorkin: Yeah, I'm really excited about that. We're hoping to be shooting, uh, uh, this summer. Uh, it's what we've got our, it is, uh, it's the true story of, uh, the police riots, uh, at the 1968, uh, Chicago Democratic Convention. It's not so much the story of the riots as it is the trial that followed the following year in 1969, where seven people, seven anti-war demonstrators, including Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin and Tom Hayden and some, uh, uh, fairly famous young upstarts, uh, were put on trial, charged with a crime that no one had ever been charged with before, no one's ever been charged with it since: conspiracy to incite a riot.

[31:04] Gordon Cox: Right.

[31:04] Aaron Sorkin: Um, and that trial, which lasted six months, became one of the craziest trials, uh, in American history. Uh, so, uh, so that's what the movie is about. And, uh, uh, you're right, it's, uh, uh, we've been putting together a great cast, very exciting.

[31:05] Aaron Sorkin: I should say. Uh, I, it, it wasn't, uh, kind of a generic decision if I want to start directing, it was that particular Molly's Game. Uh, the producers came to me. Uh, and you know, we, we had put together a short list of directors, uh, we thought were right for it. Uh, and at the end of that conversation, they said, but we think you should direct it.

[31:28] Aaron Sorkin: Um, and, uh, I started thinking about it. Uh, I, there was also the suicide mission thought in my head there. Um, and just because of the, because of what I, I felt very close to, uh, uh, to what I'd written.

[31:44] Aaron Sorkin: Well, I feel close to everything I've written. The bold-faced names, the money, the glamour, the gambling, the sex. And I was telling a story against the backdrop of those things, but a sort of more nuanced story about this person. And I wanted to make sure it stayed that way. I had the time of my life directing it.

[32:26] Gordon Cox: And you liked it enough to want to do it again with, uh, The Trial of the Chicago 7.

[32:29] Aaron Sorkin: And then I liked it enough to want to do it again with The Trial of the Chicago 7, and it was Steven Spielberg whose, um, uh, Amblin is, uh, is one of the producers who said, uh, and this is one of my favorite moments, uh, he said, uh, you are in the right to direct this movie with Molly's Game.

[32:50] Gordon Cox: Wow.

[32:52] Aaron Sorkin: I know.

[32:55] Gordon Cox: That's the one where you wait until you get in your car and start popping your fists.

[33:00] Aaron Sorkin: Uh, what's your next play?

[33:02] Gordon Cox: Uh, I don't know, but I can't wait.

[33:05] Aaron Sorkin: Um, are you aiming for sooner rather than later?

[33:08] Gordon Cox: Yes, or yes, I am.

[33:10] Aaron Sorkin: Um, and I hope that, uh, uh, whatever it is, I get to do it with Bart.

[33:14] Gordon Cox: Well, we can't wait to see it. Whatever it is.

[33:16] Aaron Sorkin: Thanks a lot, Gordon.

[33:17] Gordon Cox: Thanks for it. Nice to talk to you.

[33:25] Gordon Cox: That was Aaron Sorkin, whose hit Broadway adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird is nominated for nine Tonys and now playing at the Schubert Theater.

[33:33] Gordon Cox: If you like what you've heard on this and other episodes of Stagecraft, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and subscribe on your favorite podcatcher.

[33:41] Gordon Cox: And heads up, I'll be in Nashville from May 31st through June 2nd for the first Pod X conference, bringing together your favorite networks, podcasters, and podcasts, from true crime and politics to pop culture and storytelling to, of course, theater and stagecraft, all in one weekend.

[33:57] Gordon Cox: Before that, I'll be back next week with another new episode. And until then, see you at the theater.

[34:12] Gordon Cox: Stagecraft is brought to you by Manhattan Center's TV One Studio. Located on 34th Street and 8th Avenue in New York City.

[34:20] Gordon Cox: TV One features a 3,800 square foot stage, audience seating for up to 200, and 12,000 square feet of office production space.

[34:29] Gordon Cox: If that sounds like a lot, wait until you see how much more Manhattan Center's TV One offers. You can find out now at MC34.com forward slash TV1.

[34:39] Gordon Cox: That's MC34.com forward slash TV one.