Aaron Sorkin and Bradley Whitford Return to Where It All Began With A Few Good Men

More than 35 years after Aaron Sorkin’s A Few Good Men first hit Broadway, the courtroom drama is back on trial, bringing Sorkin and his West Wing star Bradley Whitford back to where their collaboration began. Tom Blyth stars as military lawyer Daniel Kaffee opposite Whitford as Col. Nathan Jessep in Lincoln Center Theater’s new revival, directed by Tony winner Michael Arden at the Vivian Beaumont Theater.

The high-stakes story follows Kaffee as he defends two young Marines accused of murder and uncovers evidence of a cover-up that puts him on a collision course with the chain of command. The company also features Krysta Rodriguez, Nick Blaemire, Michael Braugher, Christopher Gurr, Billy Eugene Jones, Michael Oberholtzer, Thom Sesma and John Zdrojesk.

Whitford played prosecutor Jack Ross in the original Broadway production and understudied Kaffee before taking over the role, becoming its longest-running lead. “One of the joys of this play is Aaron’s writing works on every level,” Whitford says. “There’s a lot of humor, humongous stakes. It’s about something terribly relevant at this particular moment, and it’s very generous storytelling for the audience. They’ll have a good time.”

The 1989 production was Sorkin’s breakout as a writer and the start of a creative partnership with Whitford that would later include The West Wing. After casting Whitford in A Few Good Men, Sorkin says he offered him everything he wrote from that point on. “I knew that this was an actor I was going to want to work with for the rest of my life,” he says.

“It is impossible for me to articulate the gratitude I have for Aaron,” Whitford says. “Auditioning is a treacherous sport, and I just remember feeling very comfortable in this guy’s writing. It’s impossible for an actor to express how much that means.”

Sorkin has had opportunities to bring A Few Good Men back to Broadway before. This time, the theater, the collaborators and the chance to revisit the script pulled him back. “The reason why I grabbed at this one was Lincoln Center and the Vivian Beaumont Theater,” he says. “Michael Arden, who’s a magnificent director we’ve all seen just over the last five or six years, a chance to work with Brad again, the sudden relevance of the play—the idea of illegal orders is back in the news—but also it gave me a chance, frankly, to polish the play.”

More than three decades later, Sorkin sees the revival as a chance to take another pass at his first play. “I look back, it’s kind of like my high school yearbook picture,” he says. “I wanted the chance to polish it and write it all over again. I’ve told everyone here, ‘Treat this like a new play. If something isn’t working in previews and rehearsals, let me go back to the hotel and rewrite it and do it that way.’ It’s exciting.”

A Few Good Men is best known from its 1992 film adaptation, starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, but Sorkin wants to remind theatergoers what the story can do live. “You want to make the audience a participant in the experience, not just a spectator,” he says. “If you can start at 60 miles an hour and make them just lean a little bit forward in their seats, it’s going to be an energizing experience. Theater at its best will rearrange the ions in the room.”

For Sorkin, there’s special meaning in rearranging those ions at the Vivian Beaumont. “The Beaumont has always been one of my favorite theaters, not just on Broadway, in the world. Doing a play here is really a dream come true.” And despite the story’s life on screen, he is clear about where A Few Good Men belongs. “If you like the movie, that stuff is in the play too, but A Few Good Men was always meant to be a theatrical experience,” he says. “I love plays. I love the theater. I love courtroom dramas, and I love doing things in a theater that you can only do in a theater. And that’s what we’re doing.”

A Few Good Men begins performances October 8 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. Get tickets!