With the first weekend down in this year's Chicago Theatre Week, some participating shows have sold out their allotments. But there's still plenty worth taking advantage of this week: 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
Bye Bye Birdie Tammy Mader stages the 1960 musical comedy about the fracas when Elvis-esque teen idol Conrad Birdie holds a contest to kiss one lucky fan on The Ed Sullivan Show before he goes into the Army. The cast is led by Matt Crowle as Birdie's agent, Albert, and Michelle Aravena as Albert's long-suffering fiancée.
Cabaret Randy Harrison, Andrea Goss and Chicago's own Shannon Cochran star in an exquisite national tour of the Roundabout Theatre Company's staging of the Kander and Ebb musical about hedonistic Weimar Berlin.
Far from Heaven Porchlight Music Theatre mounts the Chicago premiere of the 2013 musical drawn from Todd Haynes's 2002 film, which inserted frank sexuality into a Douglas Sirk–esque 1950s domestic drama. The score is by Grey Gardens songwriters Michael Korie and Scott Frankel.
GREAT ENSEMBLES
The Flick Travis Turner, Caroline Neff and Danny McCarthy give impressively layered performances in Annie Baker's Pulitzer Prize winner, an intentionally languid three-hour portrait of employees at a movie theater.
Marjorie Prime Beginning this week, Stacy Stoltz steps into a cast that also includes Erik Hellman, Mary Ann Thebus and Nathan Hosner in Jordan Harrison's moving consideration of whether technology can substitute for human companionship.
Mothers & Sons Terrence McNally's 2014 work considers the AIDS crisis from the perspective of those left behind, with Cindy Gold, Jeff Parker and Benjamin Sprunger anchoring Northlight's production with deep, truthful performances.
EXCITING NEW WORK
Body/Courage Danielle Pinnock embodies a range of characters, including herself, in this engrossing, interview-based solo performance about body image.
Le Switch Stephen Cone, Collin Quinn Rice, La Shawn Banks, Mitchell Fain and Elizabeth Ledo anchor Philip Dawkins's smart, timely romantic comedy in the time of marriage equality.
2666 Goodman artistic director Robert Falls and director-playwright Seth Bockley adapt the late Chilean author Roberto Bolaño's epic, complex, 900-page final novel into a five-hour, 15-actor play.
SKETCH, IMPROV AND VARIETY
The Last Defender Suit up for the House Theatre's immersive, interactive escape-room game, in which teams of 16 audience members work to solve a series of puzzles and prevent nuclear war.
My Solo Show of All Duets Cabaret star-in-her-own-mind Shirley Lamé (the alter ego of the hilarious Rebecca Sohn) puts her delusional solo spin on Broadway duets. Following a successful run last summer at iO, she's back for an encore at the Annoyance.
Soul Brother, Where Art Thou? The cast of Second City e.t.c.'s upcoming 40th revue should by now be starting to mix some new material in alongside Soul Brother's solid sketches.
