Stephen Lang to Star in Sorkin’s The Farnsworth Invention in La Jolla

Stephen Lang will play broadcasting pioneer David Sarnoff in the La Jolla Playhouse’s Page to Stage Workshop production of Aaron Sorkin’s The Farnsworth Invention, February 20-March 25. The show will be directed by Tony Award winner Des McAnuff.

The play centers on the bitter conflict between Sarnoff, the head of RCA, and Philo T. Farnsworth, the boy genius who invented television as a high school student in 1927. Sorkin is best known as the author of the play A Few Good Men and the creator of the TV series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and The West Wing.

The cast of The Farnsworth Invention also includes Jimmi Simpson as Philo T. Farnsworth and Alexandra Wilson as Pem Farnsworth, along with Nadia Bowers, A.J. Ditty, Amy Ellenberger, Kyle Fabel, Maurice Godin, Morgan Thomas Hollingsworth, Brian Howe, Bruce McKenzie, Spencer Moses, Jim Ortlieb, Michael Pemberton, Katharine Powell, Steve Rosen, and James Sutorius. The production team includes Klara Zieglerova (sets), David C. Woolard (costumes), Howell Binkley (lighting), Walter Trarbach (sound design), Lisa Shriver (choreography), and Andrew Lippa (original music).

Lang received a Tony Award nomination for The Speed of Darkness and has also appeared on Broadway in Death of a Salesman and A Few Good Men. Among his many other theater credits are Defiance and Beyond Glory, for which he received the Joseph Jefferson Award. He will be seen later this year in the film Save Me and the television miniseries The Bronx is Burning.

McAnuff won Tony Awards for his direction of Big River and The Who’s Tommy; he is currently represented on Broadway by Jersey Boys, and he recently directed Broadway-bound productions of The Wiz and Zhivago.