Contributors

Concurring in a reversal and remand because of certain errors in a district judge’s detailed 33-page analysis of a trade dress claim, 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Gregg Costa searched for a rationale justifying a puzzling paradox about disparate levels of appellate scrutiny.

Question: How low is the minimum threshold of creativity for copyright protection?

Professor Megan Ming Francis’ book “Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State” is an important contribution for anyone thinking about the quintessential question: how did a marginalized community prompt the federal government to intervene in state criminal court proceedings?

It has long been the practice in this space to discuss the grants and denials by the Illinois Supreme Court of petitions for leave to appeal, but here we are going one step further to discuss a case in which a petition will likely to be filed, plus two other issues that need resolution.

The 1st District Appellate Court recently held that a $6 million settlement agreement between a claimant and insured was reasonable and in good faith even though both parties were represented by the same attorneys.

In an appearance criticized by many, Justice Samuel Alito, showing rare judicial facial hair, gave a speech in Italy about the Dobbs decision and foreign leaders. He noted that for some, it had not worked out so well.

In order to assure that my opinion will not be compromised, I never look at another person’s review or comment about a production before writing my own column.

So, here we are again — in the middle of a long and hot summer, awaiting the opening of the Chicago theatrical season and I’m looking for something to fill my weekly column.

As I prepared to review “Priscilla Queen of the Desert,” a musical about three drag queens traveling across Australia, I thought of recent criticism and opposition to LGBTQ issues at a time when the right-leaning Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe v. Wade.

As summer drifts on, we have had a couple of pleasant entertainment surprises in recent months outside the live stage.

When I started writing this column more than 30 years ago, I had spent a number of years creating political and social satire shows for the Chicago Bar Association. However, I had little experience critiquing live theatrical productions for a daily newspaper.

When Stephen Sondheim passed away last fall, the world lost one of its greatest composers and lyricists. Sondheim had done it all. He composed music, wrote books and songs — the whole shebang. There were others like him (Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and Cole Porter) but they were few and far between, and not many from the current crop of emerging songwriters could measure up to him.