Scheduling Conflicts Force Aaron Sorkin to Escape from Broadway’s Houdini, Starring Hugh Jackman

When will Aaron Sorkin finally come back to Broadway?

That’s the question we’re now pondering after news that the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of The Social Network and the Emmy-winning creator of The West Wing has been forced to bow out of his Broadway book-writing debut, the upcoming musical, Houdini, due to scheduling conflicts.

Houdini, which has been in development since 2010 and is expected to open on Broadway a future season, is set to star Tony Award winner and current Oscar nominee Hugh Jackman (The Boy From Oz) as the legendary magician, with two-time Tony winner Jack O’Brien (Hairspray) directing, and Academy Award winner Stephen Schwartz (Wicked) writing the music.

But Sorkin, the author of the Broadway plays A Few Good Men and The Farnsworth Invention, is too enmeshed in the second season of his HBO series, The Newsroom, as well as adapting Walter Isaacson’s book Steve Jobs (about the life of the Apple founder) for Sony Pictures, to finish the musical within its scheduled time frame. He is, however, currently in discussions for the continuing development of Houdini to use his original concepts and other materials.

Additional information on Houdini will be announced in the future. Until then, we will pine for Sorkin’s return to the Great White Way, whether it is with The Newsroom: The Musical (starring its current Broadway-centric cast of Tony nominees Jeff Daniels (God of Carnage), Alison Pill (The Lieutenant of Inishmore), and Thomas Sadoski (Reasons to be Pretty), as well as Tony winner John Gallagher, Jr. (Spring Awakening)), or even the long-awaited revival of A Few Good Men.