Water for Elephants transports audiences to the circus — and has some dazzling aerial tricks up its sleeve. Based on the popular 2006 novel by Sara Gruen, Rick Elice’s book and PigPen Theatre Co.’s score comprise a memory musical: The elderly Mr. Jankowski (Robert Tully) looks back on his days as a member of a traveling circus back in 1931. Young Jacob (Chicago native Zachary Keller), who almost graduated veterinary school, stumbles onto a train…and finds himself among the “kinkers” of the Benzini Brothers’ one-ring circus. The narration switches between the two Jacobs, as he recalls his role of animal caretaker and how he falls for Marlena (Helen Krushinski), the circus’s star act and wife of the cruel and abusive ringmaster August (Connor Sullivan). 

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Untitled Vampire Play — a world premiere from Lookingglass ensemble member Kevin Douglas — is a fun, wacky romp. The play doesn’t take itself seriously, and director Devon de Mayo’s cast has plenty of fun with vampire and human antics alike. Douglas’s script draws on all sorts of vampire lore for his vision and vividly imagines what it might be like if vampires roamed the streets of Chicago. 

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A play as befuddling as its nonsensical title — now playing at Steppenwolf through July 12, 2026

I left Catch as Catch Can at Steppenwolf Theatre Company on Sunday night wondering exactly what I had just seen, and what, if anything, I was meant to take from it. In part, playwright Mia Chung’s play presents as an acting exercise:  It centers on two families —  the working class Lavecchias and Phelans of New England — but only three actors play all the roles. In Amy Morton’s production, ensemble members Gary Cole, Audrey Francis, and Tim Hopper bridge age and gender to play various combinations of parents and children among the two. But to what end? It’s not clear. I thought perhaps Catch As Catch Can would offer some sort of meditation on the parent-child relationship. Perhaps it was meant to explore how children become their parents? It doesn’t.

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Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt follows multiple generations of an Austrian Jewish family from prosperity to despair — spanning over 50 years from 1899 to 1955. Now in its Chicago-area premiere at Writers Theatre, the late Stoppard’s final play includes a cast of 24 actors and many, many characters. Leopoldstadt (named after the Jewish quarter of Vienna) is a sprawling and ambitious work. 

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Rugged masculinity meets forbidden queer romance in Brokeback Mountain. Based on Annie Proulx’s short story (which was adapted into a buzzy 2005 film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger), Ashley Robinson’s play follows the clandestine romance between ranchers Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar over 20 years in rural Wyoming.

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Monty Python’s Spamalot is a jubilant and genuinely hilarious touring rendition of the 2023 Broadway revival. If you’re looking for hearty laughs and a winning combo of slapstick humor, witty pop culture, and musical theater references, Spamalot’s got it in spades. 

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TimeLine Theatre Company opens their gorgeous new permanent theater home with a captivating and deeply resonant staging of Amy Herzog’s adaptation of An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen. Herzog’s taut and contemporary reimagining of Ibsen’s text fits TimeLine’s mission beautifully: To connect moments of history to the current cultural climate. It’s a testament both to Herzog’s adaptation and to director Ron OJ Parson’s phenomenal ensemble at TimeLine that the play feels timely and engaging — but never overly pointed. 

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The Chicago premiere runs through June 7, 2026

What happens when you make a deal with the devil? Covenant asks its characters to find out. Drawing inspiration from both horror films and classic blues music, York Walker’s Chicago premiere play follows a group of characters as they explore their faith — in both Christianity and the supernatural.

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Though it’s a musical about a support group for internet addicts, Dave Molloy’s Octet is delightfully analog. And that’s precisely the point — Molloy’s musical invites audiences to look away from their screens and lean into this intimate, inventive, and fully a cappella show. Molloy (perhaps best known for Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812) has written the kind of show that gives me hope for the future of new musicals. Octet is timely, creative, often funny — and truly, wholly original. And based on the recent news about the forthcoming movie musical directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, it has commercial legs.

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The blame game’s the thing in FAULT at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. In this world premiere from Scooter Pietsch, wealthy and privileged married couple Jerry (Enrico Colantoni) and Lucy (Rebecca Spence) come to blows in an argument that’s part farcical, part deeply cutting as the wounds of their relationship reveal themselves. 

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