Aaron Sorkin Says Broadway’s A Few Good Men Does What 'You Can Only Do in a Theater'

Before A Few Good Men became a film, it was an Aaron Sorkin play. Now it’s returning to Broadway under the direction of Tony winner Michael Arden, with Bradley Whitford, Tom Blyth and Krysta Rodriguez leading the cast. Broadway.com caught up with the company and creatives about revisiting the story and got the truth about what fans of the movie and newcomers alike will discover onstage.

Arden is enjoying a close relationship with his source material. “The only other writer I've worked with in the straight play is Charles Dickens,” he jokes. “So it's nice to have a little bit more contact with the writer than with Dickens.” He sees his task as honoring a script that already delivers. “The play works. It's my job to mess it up. So I'm just hoping that we're doing it justice.”

Sorkin, for his part, is excited by Arden’s theatrical approach. “I love when directors do things in a theater that you can only do in a theater,” he says. “And that's what's happening here.” Arden hopes the accompanying production design holds some mystery for the audience: “We wanted to make something that you couldn't quite understand the depth of, which is what I think hopefully the play does as well.”

Michael Oberholtzer plays “straight arrow” Capt. Jack Ross, and got an early vote of confidence from the playwright. “At the initial reading, [Sorkin] was there. He came up to me and he said, ‘Your instincts are right.’ So I thought, ‘This is great.’” Oberholtzer expects movie fans to encounter something new. “I think a lot of people are going to be surprised that it was first a play to begin with,” he says. This production, he adds, is “its own thing,” offering “a whole new experience of what A Few Good Men is about and why it's important.”

For Blyth, who plays Lt. Daniel Kaffee, the film was an early inspiration. “I grew up on the movie,” he says. “It's one of the films that made me want to become an actor.” Rehearsing Sorkin’s dialogue with Arden has given him a fresh connection to the work, and he’s eager for younger audiences to find it for themselves. “For many people, this will be the first experience they have of A Few Good Men,” he says. “We get to hopefully reignite interest in a younger generation all over again.”

Rodriguez, who plays Lt. Commander JoAnne Galloway, sees her role as one of those opportunities that arrives at just the right moment. “Sometimes visions come that you didn't even know to ask for,” she says. Working at Lincoln Center with Sorkin and Arden is more than an ambition fulfilled: “I do think things show up when you're ready for them.” Now that A Few Good Men has shown up on Broadway, we’re ready too.

Get tickets to A Few Good Men!