Aziza Barnes’s BLKS is often funny, often vulgar, and sometimes heartbreaking. Now in a world premiere staging at Steppenwolf, BLKS chronicles 24 hours in the lives of three young black women in their early 20s living in New York City. Barnes’s playwriting is achingly real and naturalistic, while also showcasing the playwright’s poetic chops. In Octavia (Nora Carroll), Imani (Celeste Cooper), and June (Leea Ayers), Barnes has given us three unique and beautifully written characters navigating a tumultuous moment in their young lives.

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Griffin Theatre’s stunning production of VIOLET will simultaneously make hearts ache and soar. With music by Jeanine Tesori and libretto by Brian Crawley, director Scott Weinstein’s raw, heartfelt staging has a stellar cast that finds every moment of joy and sorrow possible in the material.

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BEAUTIFUL THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL, one of the most well-constructed and delightful jukebox musicals I’ve ever seen, has arrived back in Chicago just in time for the holiday season. This empowering musical about singer-songwriter Carole King has enough emotional impact to make your heart burst. This is my third time seeing BEAUTIFUL, and I remain struck by the emotional depth behind this show. In BEAUTIFUL, we see the title character not only learn to find her voice as an artist in a male-dominated industry but also as an independent young woman who breaks free of a toxic relationship with her former husband and songwriting partner Gerry Goffin. And though that storyline hardly sounds light and airy, BEAUTIFUL is also an unabashedly joyous celebration of King’s music and that of other 1960s artists who worked alongside her—perhaps most significantly her friends Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann.

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