Television

The Envelope – a column at LATimes.com that handicaps the prospects for various awards like the Oscars and the Tonys, offers up this summary of the reviews: Tonys 2008: ‘The Farnsworth Invention’ lacks originality TV and movie scribe Aaron Sorkin’s return to Broadway 18 years after triumphing with the military courtroom drama "A Few Good […]

New York Times Theater Critic Ben Brantley tries really hard to find things to like about The Farnsworth Invention.  And mostly fails: This information-crammed, surface-skimming biodrama about the creators of television suggests nothing so much as a classroom presentation on a seven-figure budget. The show certainly deserves high marks for all those traits that exacting schoolteachers

The reviews of The Farnsworth Invention are pouring in almost by the hour now.  Here are links to the most recent, and a "money quote" from each one: The Chicago Tribune (Chris Jones): Boy, this is a jumpy piece of writing. It feels like the writer is worried the audience might change the channel. That’s

The play doesn’t open until tonight, but some of the early reviews are starting to trickle in, like this comment and exchange from BroadwayWorld.com: Aaron Sorkin has glibness down to a science; just take a look at any episode of “The West Wing” or his short lived “Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip” if one

With the play opening officially this coming Monday night, it’s gratifying to see "the rest of the story" — the REAL story that the play neglects, beginning to get some traction:

Link: THE FACTS VS. ‘FARNSWORTH’.

November 30, 2007 — CAN Aaron Sorkin handle the truth – or does he just not care? So wonder Philo T. Farnsworth fans who’ve seen Sorkin’s new Broadway play.

Opening Monday, "The Farnsworth Invention" describes Farnsworth’s struggle to build a TV system and protect his work against RCA and its leader, David Sarnoff. Audiences leave believing Farnsworth was a failed, drunken genius.

In truth, Farnsworth won his patent fight, showed off a working TV system in 1934 and was manufacturing TVs by 1939.

Farnsworth’s admirers, who’ve tried for decades to adjust the fuzzy historical picture, say Sorkin’s drama plays like a bad rerun.

"After 30 years of telling that story, we finally see it turned into popular entertainment, and it’s wrong!" says Paul Schatzkin, author of the Farnsworth biography "The Boy Who Invented Television."

Follow this link for a scene-by-scene analysis of the play -v- the true story

Broadway stagehands have settled their dispute with the Producers Guild and ended their walk-out.  Preview performances of The Farnsworth Invention resume tonight (Thurs, Nov 19) and the official opening is scheduled for next Monday, December 30.

While the opening of The Farnsworth Invention remains in limbo due to the stagehands strike on Broadway, the New York Times offers a profile of Alexandra Wilson, the actress who landed the role of Pem Farnsworth: “She’s great,” Ms. Wilson said of her character. “I’m totally in love with her. Not to sound like a

The opening of The Farnsworth Invention on Broadway has been postponed until the stagehands settle their strike with producers. But the PR machine was cranked up to fulll volume last week, making the cast and crew available to whatever media outlets were ready to soft-peddle the play’s "even handed" treatment of the subject matter. Nevertheless,

And Once again, the false premise justifies the false conclusion: Blogger: Adventures in and out of Mainstream Media The play was rather revisionist about the life of David Sarnoff, humanizing him, and making him almost sympathetic, or at least comprehensible. He wasn’t so bad really, it was just that the Cossacks burned down his house

Here’s a blog post from Naiomi’s acting journal that  somehow manages to capture all the upsides and downsides to Aaron Sorkin’s Broadway play.  I hope the author will forgive me for quoting it almost in its entirety, with comments: So yesterday my acting class went and saw “The Farnsworth Invention.” I loved it! It was