As we adjust to daylight saving time and deal with the fire hose of news and anxiety pointed at us every day, it can be hard to get the energy to get up and about sometimes. (Or maybe that’s just me.) But warmer weather also brings more reasons to break out of the gray Chicago doldrums. And if you have a hankering to enjoy live performances surrounded by community, the upcoming months are blooming with possibilities. Here are just a few of our suggestions for the best in theater, dance, comedy, and opera.
COMEDY AND VARIETY
Helluva Cabaret
If you think you’re living in hell, then maybe a visit to Helluva Cabaret will either fan the flames or soothe you. The brainchild of Reader social media maven Charli Renken (known as Vicious Mockery in their drag persona), this parodic drag and variety show draws on the animated musical universe created by Vivienne Medrano’s Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel, in which the underworld provides opportunities for both assassination and redemption. The Hellaverse here covers seven circles of hell with drag, burlesque, live music, and more. Fri 4/11, 9:30 PM, Newport Theater, 956 W. Newport, 773-270-3440, newporttheater.com, $25-$35, 18+
W. Kamau Bell
The producer and host of CNN’s United Shades of America and creator of Showtime’s We Need to Talk About Cosby drops truth bombs regularly with his blog Who’s With Me?, which also provides the name for his current stand-up tour. As an activist, writer, podcaster, and performer, Bell, as he describes himself, “cares too much and sleeps too little,” but he’s bringing his message of meaningful resistance to the Den for two nights. Longtime Bell friend and collaborator Dwayne Kennedy opens. 4/25-4/26, Fri–Sat 7:15 and 9:30 PM, Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee, 773-697-3830, thedentheatre.com, $28-$60 (two-drink minimum)
DANCE
Material Conditions: Two works on autonomy & reproductive justice
Two artists collaborate on a split bill of movement and multimedia performances looking at liberation and reproductive health and justice. In Praise Music Sonogram, Houston-based visual and performing artist Julia Barbosa Landois uses spoken word, video, and experimental sound to “tell a story of motherhood, miscarriage, and abortion access across national and state borders,” contrasting European health care with the crisis in reproductive health unleashed in the U.S. with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Chicago artist KIKI Kingʼs ABORT is a choreographic work that addresses physical liberation as embodied in club culture, while also paying tribute to the many contributions of Black women to rock music. Thu 3/27–Sat 3/29 7 PM, Links Hall, 3111 N. Western, 773-281-0824, linkshall.org, $16-$42 sliding scale
Breakthrough!
With the rising attacks on science and education, it seems timely for Evanston Dance Ensemble to celebrate the spirit of exploration and discovery. In Breakthrough!, seven different choreographers created world premieres that all focus in some way on scientific themes, including the Fibonacci sequence and Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine. Company artistic director Enid Smith created two new pieces—one set to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and exploring eclipses, and another exploring extreme weather events and how communities rebuild in the aftermath of disasters. The finale, created by Ryan Galloway, is a musical theater dance number set to Oingo Boingo’s “Weird Science.” 4/3-4/6, Thu–Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 10 AM (relaxed performance “for all ages and abilities”), Sun 1 and 4 PM, Josephine Louis Theater, Northwestern University, 20 Arts Circle Dr., Evanston, 847-491-7282, evanstondanceensemble.org, $28 adults, $18 for children and seniors (4/5 show $12 per person or $30 for a family of three or more)
Soaring: Life, Light, and Legacy
Giordano Dance Chicago celebrates 40 years of the leadership of Nan Giordano (daughter of the late founder Gus Giordano) and also pays tribute to her son, Keenan Giordano Casey, who died suddenly in October 2024 at age 29. Nan created Soaring about her son in collaboration with Cesar G. Salinas and the company dancers. The evening also includes the world premieres of Giordano and Salinas’s 333, a solo for company member Erina Ueda, and resident choreographer Al Blackstone’s Sana, alongside repertory favorites Taal (also by Nan Giordano), Red & Black (by Ray Leeper), and Pyrokinesis (by Christopher Huggins). 4/4-4/5, Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 6 PM, Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph, 312-334-7777, harristheaterchicago.org, $27-$97
OPERA
Ester
Haymarket Opera Company launches its 15th season (and its admirable focus on lesser-known works in the operatic canon) with the Chicago premiere of Alessandro Stradella’s 1673 oratorio (libretto by Lelio Orsini), based on the biblical story of Queen Esther and her foiling of her husband’s plans to kill the Jews in Persia. Soprano Kimberly McCord sings the title role and bass-baritone Christian Pursell is Haman (the villain whose name inspires noisemakers during Purim services, though Haymarket will probably use their usual array of period instrumentation here). Fri 3/28, 7:30 PM (preconcert lecture 6:45 PM), Gannon Concert Hall, Holtschneider Performance Center at DePaul University, 2330 N. Halsted, 773-325-5200, haymarketopera.org, $55-$95 ($7 students)
THEATER
Splash Hatch on the E Going Down
In Kia Corthron’s drama, a 15-year-old pregnant girl in Harlem balances impending motherhood with research into environmental injustice in her community. When a tragedy happens, she confronts her fears and plans for the future. Definition Theatre presents the Chicago premiere, directed by local legend Cheryl Lynn Bruce. The south-side company also recently announced they’ve received a $500,000 grant from the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation in support of their planned new home in Woodlawn. Through 4/13, Definition Theatre, 1160 E. 55th St., definitiontheatre.org, $25-$35
The Distrikt of Lake Michigun: A Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Ridiculous Tragedy (and also completely factual and also true)
The ludicrously long title of Stephanie Murphy’s world premiere play is wholly appropriate for its subject matter: George Streeter, the scoundrel for whom Streeterville is named. Streeter and his wife took over a sandbar around the site of what would later become the John Hancock Center and claimed the land as the “U.S. District of Lake Michigan.” Murphy’s take on Streeter (directed by Seth Wilson) suggests that he wasn’t so different from the rogues and rascals (that’s putting it mildly) who are running business and real estate dealings now. Stage Left Theatre, one of the oldest ensemble-based companies in Chicago, hasn’t been as active in recent years, but they’ve found a home on Michigan Avenue at Water Tower Place for this production. (Perhaps the reversal of fortune for once-prosperous urban malls like Water Tower made it easier for a nonprofit theater company to take up temporary residence there.) The company promises the show will be “an environmental, participatory experience,” with a vaudeville-style curtain-raiser before each performance. Through 4/27: Water Tower Place, 835 N. Michigan, Ste. 7080 (6th floor), stagelefttheatre.com, previews through 3/23 free (reservation required), 3/28-4/27 $40
Titanique
Broadway in Chicago and Porchlight Music Theatre team up for the Chicago premiere of the off-Broadway hit jukebox musical parody of James Cameron’s 1997 romantic shipwreck epic, featuring the songs of Céline Dion and book by Tye Blue, Marla Mindelle, and Constantine Rousouli. The premise is that Dion hijacks a museum tour about the Titanic, claiming to have actually survived the 1912 disaster, and then launching into her own loopy version of the events around Jack, Rose, and the other fictional and real characters from the film. The partially improvised show (directed by Blue) draws upon other pop cultural references—we’ll have to see how the material changes for a Chicago audience. (I’d personally love to see someone from the 1915 SS Eastland disaster show up to remind everyone that the Titanic doesn’t have a monopoly on maritime tragedies.) 3/25-5/18, Broadway Playhouse, 175 E. Chestnut, broadwayinchicago.com, $45-$100
Book of Grace
Tense family reunions have provided the backdrop for many great shows at Steppenwolf over the years, including Tracy Letts’s 2007 August: Osage County and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s 2024 Purpose (now running on Broadway). Now they’re presenting the Chicago premiere of Suzan-Lori Parks’s 2010 play, directed by Steve H. Broadnax III, in which Grace, who tries to see the good in everyone, is caught between her husband, Vet (a domineering border patrol agent), and her stepson, Buddy, who carries a grenade and a chip on his shoulder about his father. Zainab Jah, Jerome Preston Bates, and Namir Smallwood star. 3/27-5/18, Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted, 312-335-1650, steppenwolf.org, $20-$102
Prayer for the French Republic
Northlight Theatre and Theater Wit coproduce the local premiere of Joshua Harmon’s 2022 drama about a Jewish American student in 2016 who tries to reconnect with her family’s French roots by visiting a distant cousin. In the first act, the rise of radical right-winger Marine Le Pen in mainstream French politics and an anti-Semitic attack lead the French family to consider a move to Israel. This mirrors the story of the cousins’ great-grandparents in 1944 Paris, awaiting news of what happened to their missing family. Theater Wit artistic director Jeremy Wechsler directs a cast that includes longtime Chicago favorites Janet Ulrich Brooks, Rae Gray, Lawrence Grimm, Kathy Scambiatterra, and others. 4/10-5/11, Northlight Theatre, North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie, 847-673-6300, northlight.org, $35-$91
Obliteration
Andrew Hinderaker’s Obliteration—one of the best shows I saw in 2024—had a short run at Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theater through Gift Theatre last summer. I’ve been hoping it would be remounted sooner rather than later, and now it’s returning for a longer run at the South Loop’s Revival as an independent production. The story follows two stand-up comedians—Neal (Michael Patrick Thornton) and Lee (Cyd Blakewell)—who meet after the former’s set at a club one night and start a seemingly unlikely relationship that unpeels trauma and deep truths for them both. Like Philip Dawkins’s The Comedians at Raven last fall (also an excellent show), Obliteration utilizes onstage stand-up sets from the characters to deepen the connections between them. Importantly, that material is good, which isn’t always the case when playwrights who haven’t done stand-up try to figure out how to create a believable tight five within a play. I don’t know if this play will come around again with Thornton and Blakewell (who are about as perfectly cast as can be), so it’s a good idea to make plans to see it now. 4/10-5/4, Revival, 906 S. Wabash, the-revival.com, $20-$35
Reader Recommends: THEATER & DANCE
Reader reviews of Chicago theater, dance, comedy, and performance arts.
Concrete Content fuses Martin McDonagh’s authoritarian tale with Chicago’s history of police violence.
Tell Me on a Sunday is a showcase for Dani Pike.
The School for Scandal remains fresh and funny in Idle Muse’s production.
Lifeline’s latest family show teaches empathy without preachiness.
A bilingual musical Go Dog Go! delights at Chicago Children’s Theatre.
Teatro La Plaza’s Hamlet reimagines the tragedy through the experiences of a cast of actors with Down syndrome.
https://chicagoreader.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/3-GDCs-Erina-Ueda.-Photo-by-Todd-Rosenberg_web.jpg
2025-03-19 16:30:16
