American Blues Theater’s triumphant LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS will have Chicago audiences clamoring to head downtown to Skid Row. This intimately staged production has a full sound (with music director Austin Cook leading a four-piece band, you can feel the vibrations of the bass in the floor) and provides an all-encompassing, fully entertaining spectacle. Grant Sabin’s set design presents a perfectly dilapidated Skid Row setting, with Mr. Mushnik’s decrepit, garish flower shop as the centerpiece—even some of the “bulbs” in the neon lights in the “Flower Shop” sign are missing, while the letters “L,” “O,” and “W” tellingly remain. And yet when ensemble members Jasondra Jackson, Camille Robinson, and Eunice Woods bust out onstage and begin the show’s title number as Skid Row’s “Greek Chorus” Ronnette, Crystal, and Chiffon, the immense joy in this production is deeply felt. This LITTLE SHOP fully inhabits the hilarious and heartfelt nature of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s exceedingly clever musical.

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For musical theater die-hards (like myself), Porchlight Music Theatre’s concert reading of CHESS—a three-night-only engagement as part of the Porchlight Revisits series—is simply delightful. CHESS debuted in London in 1986 (which is the version that Porchlight has chosen to stage, in its Chicago premiere) and then was retooled, rather unsuccessfully, before moving to Broadway in 1988. This obscure musical, with lyrics and book by Tim Rice (though where the latter’s concerned, there’s not much to speak of) and music by ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, provides a great concert showcase for some very talented local Chicago actors. This sublime concert staging proves a logical vehicle for CHESS, which has an immensely complicated score but remains fuzzy plot-wise.

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Under the direction of Lee Blakeley at Lyric Opera (who originally staged this production for Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet in 2014), Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic musical THE KING AND I is heightened to the lavish and beautiful spectacle it deserves. This story of British school teacher Anna Leonowens who arrives in Siam to instruct the many children of the King has moments of sweeping grandiosity but also many of emotional intimacy—the Lyric’s production makes the full emotional arc a delight to watch. Visually, the creative team captures every inch of the musical’s opulence. Sue Blane’s costume designs are breathtakingly elaborate and incorporate an inspiring display of color; Anna’s magnificent hoop skirts are definitely a highlight. Jean-March Puissant’s set design also captures the grandiosity of a royal palace with many intricate details, while also giving the performers the space they need to execute Peggy Hickey’s choreography, and Rick Fisher’s lighting adds to the decadent atmosphere.

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