Aaron SorkinAaron Benjamin Sorkin (born June 9, 1961) is an American screenwriter, producer and playwright. After graduating from Syracuse University

Aaron Benjamin Sorkin (born June 9, 1961) is an American screenwriter, producer and playwright. After graduating from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Musical Theatre in 1983, Sorkin spent much of the 1980s in New York as a struggling, largely unemployed actor.^[1] He found his passion in writing plays however, and quickly established himself as a young promising playwright. His stageplay A Few Good Men caught the attention of Hollywood producer David Brown, who bought the film rights before the play even premiered.^[2]

Castle Rock Entertainment hired Sorkin to adapt A Few Good Men for the big screen. The movie, directed by Rob Reiner, became a box office success. Sorkin spent the early 1990s writing two other screenplays at Castle Rock for the films Malice and The American President. In the mid-1990s he worked as a script doctor on films such as Schindler's List and Bulworth. In 1998 his television career began when he created the TV comedy series Sports Night for the ABC network. Sports Night's second season was its last, and in 1999 overlapped with the debut of Sorkin's next TV series, the multiple Emmy-award-winning political drama The West Wing, this time for the NBC network. In 2006, after a three year hiatus, he returned to television with a dramedy called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, about the backstage drama at a late night sketch comedy show, once again for the NBC network. His most recent feature film screenplay is Charlie Wilson's War, which is set to open in movie theaters on Christmas day 2007.^[3]

After more than a decade away from the theatre, Sorkin returned to adapt for the stage his screenplay The Farnsworth Invention, which started a workshop run at La Jolla Playhouse in February 2007. He has battled with a cocaine addiction for many years, but after a highly publicized arrest he received treatment in a drug diversion program and rid himself of the drug dependence. In television, Sorkin is known as a controlling writer, who rarely shares the job of penning the teleplays with other writers. His writing staff are more likely to do research and come up with stories for him to tell. His trademark is writing rapid-fire dialogue and extended soliloquies, and in television, this penchant is complemented by frequent collaborator Thomas Schlamme's characteristic visual technique called the "Walk and Talk".