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The best of what's left for Chicago Theatre Week

Written by
Kris Vire
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Chicago Theatre Week 2017 kicks off today, and in this fifth year of the promotion, Chicago theatergoers seem to have gotten hip to the program: Several participating shows around town have already sold out their allotments of deeply discounted tickets. But there's still plenty worth taking advantage of this weekend and next: Let's make some last-minute picks by category. Also check out our complete guide to Chicago Theatre Week, and get your tickets while you can at ChicagoTheatreWeek.com.

FOR MUSICAL LOVERS

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert The Aussie drag-queen saga gets a sequined shine in Pride Films and Plays’ storefront-sized production.

The Scottsboro Boys The Kander and Ebb musical tells the sorry story of nine black teenagers railroaded on false charges in the Depression-era South.

Sweeney Todd Attend the tale of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street as Paramount artistic director Jim Corti stages a new production of Sondheim's most murderous musical.

Urinetown It's a privilege to pee in the dystopian musical comedy by former Neo-Futurists Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann, set in a corporate-controlled future where every toilet is a pay toilet. Stephen Schellhardt directs a sharp young cast in BoHo Theatre's revival.

GREAT ENSEMBLES

A Disappearing Number Nick Bowling helms the Chicago premiere of this 2007 work devised by the British theater company Complicité, exploring mathematics and human connection in a series of vignettes set both in the present and a century earlier. TimeLine’s top-notch cast includes Kareem Bandealy, Anish Jethmalani, Anu Bhatt, Arya Daire, William Grimes, Juliet Hart and Siddhartha Rajan.

The Temperamentals About Face Theatre stages the Chicago premiere of Jon Marans’s 2010 play about the founding of the early gay-rights group the Mattachine Society. Set in the 1950s—and taking its title from a slang term of the time referring to gay men—Andrew Volkoff's production features affecting work by Kyle Hatley, Lane Anthony Flores,  Paul Fagen, Rob Lindley and Alex Weisman.

Uncle Vanya Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Annie Baker (The Flick, The Aliens) adapts Anton Chekhov’s portrait of the discontented denizens of a country estate. Goodman artistic director Robert Falls stages the Chicago premiere.

EXCITING NEW WORK

Gloria In Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s biting new drama, conniving editorial assistants at a Vogue-esque magazine battle for a career-defining opportunity. And then things turn really dark.

Peerless Jiehae Park's darkly comic play reimagines the murderously ambitious royal couple of Shakespeare's Macbeth as overachieving teenage twin sisters M and L. Hutch Pimentel stages the Chicago premiere for First Floor Theater.

The Wolf at the End of the Block Playwright Ike Holter’s latest Chicago-set work is a fresh, startling take on race, class and whose voices get heard.

SKETCH, IMPROV AND VARIETY

Fantastic Super Great Nation Numero Uno The Second City e.t.c.’s latest revue sports a tremendous title, one of the best titles. Cast members Katie Klein, Julie Marchiano, Sayjal Joshi, Andrew Knox, Alan Linic, Jasbir Singh Vazquez and Tien Tran draft a sharp but not sour take on the nation’s current affairs.

These 30 Plays As the Neo-Futurists work toward a permanent replacement show for Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, check in on their progress as they bridge the gap with These 30 Plays.

Thrones! The Musical Parody Long-running musical improv troupe Baby Wants Candy turns its attention to Westeros for this scripted parody, in which five superfans catch their uninitiated friend up on six seasons of a fantasy TV series in 90 minutes.

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