About that brokered thing: the Sorkinian view

BradleyKSherman, just now, in the comments:

A brokered convention, assuming it's not a replay of Chicago '68, could be a wonderful asset to the blue team. Instead of it just being the ritual anointment of a candidate everyone already knows is the nominee, it could have real drama. Must-see TV, if you can stand watching these people on TV, which I can't but, apparently the majority can.

I totally agree, and coincidentally there's a piece in this weekend's Times Magazine with a hilariously relevant headline:

Aaron Sorkin on how he would write the Democratic primary for ‘The West Wing.’

That would clearly go to the open convention and wonderful, heartbreaking dénouement where the guy who most resembles Martin Sheen, who stayed out of the primaries altogether (my money on Sherrod Brown for this role), gives his speech to the floor and—spoiler—rejects the nomination that's been held out to him by the baffled superdelegates and tells them they have to just keep voting, even if it takes the 103 ballots it took in 1924, because that's what's American and what we believe, and that's where the show ends, as the delegates understand that democracy is work. Who they actually end up nominating is less important than that.

To Kill a Theater

Darryl Maximilian Robinson as Reverend Sykes in the 2011 staging of Christopher Sergel's To Kill a Mockingbird by the Glendale Centre Theatre of Glendale, California, via.

Heard a note on this on NPR this morning, found a more thorough treatment from Mark Kennedy/AP Entertainment at the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer:

Dozens of community and nonprofit theaters across the U.S. have been forced to abandon productions of "To Kill a Mockingbird" under legal threat by Broadway and Hollywood producer Scott Rudin. The combative move has prompted calls for a boycott of Rudin's work

Rudin is arguing that author Harper Lee signed over to him exclusive worldwide rights to the title of the novel and that Rudin's current adaptation on Broadway — written by Aaron Sorkin — is the only version allowed to be performed.

That means different adaptations have had to be scuttled in such small venues as the Grand Theatre in Salt Lake City; Mugford Street Players in Marblehead, Massachusetts; and the Kavinoky Theatre in Buffalo, New York, as well as a planned United Kingdom and Ireland tour. They had licensed the rights for a different version, written by Christopher Sergel and licensed by The Dramatic Publishing Company or DPC.

"Rudin's work", as if he'd created the thing, as opposed to scrounging the money from his social circle whose demands for profit are responsible for Broadway prices that make it impossible for most people ever to see a show. That's annoying in itself. And they're not saying Sergel's adaptation (written in 1970 and a staple of high school and college and community theaters all over the US ever since—Sergel himself died in 1993) can't ever be performed again, just that they get to decide whether a particular production can take place or not, since they plan to take Sorkin's play on the road, and the staging by the Mugford Street Players could cut into Rudin's take; if he wants to put it on in the Marblehead neighborhood local audience might think "Oh, we've already seen that" and stay home, I guess.