In DADA WOOF PAPA HOT, now in its Chicago premiere at About Face Theatre, playwright Peter Parnell explores that nagging question of what it means to have it all. The play centers on a gay couple and their circle of friends. Though Alan (Bruch Reed) and Rob (Benjamin Sprunger) have been together for fifteen years, they’ve been married for a much shorter period of time and must navigate their shifting identities as partners and as parents of their three-year-old daughter, Nicola. (The play’s seemingly nonsensical title refers to her first words and attempt at her parents’ names.) The characters in DADA WOOF PAPA HOT are clearly well-off, but that doesn’t make the ways in which they struggle with the challenges of daily life and parenthood any less human.

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Hansol Jung’s CARDBOARD PIANO, now in its Chicago premiere at Timeline Theatre Company, centers on historical and contemporary issues in Uganda. Jung’s narrative sweeps up much of that nation’s recent history of violence, child soldiers, and homophobia into the story of just a few characters inside a church. And CARDBOARD PIANO relays all this alongside lofty themes of forgiveness, the power of religion, and the human need to fix what’s broken and right wrongs. While this may sound like a tall order for one play to tackle—and it is—it is Jung’s utterly human, multidimensional characters that allow her to find success. Jung also proves a masterful playwright because she knows that the best plays meditate on themes and add more complexity to some of life’s biggest questions, without offering up clear answers.

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Acclaimed actor Brendan Coyle takes the Goodman stage in Conor McPherson’s thoroughly bizarre monologue play ST. NICHOLAS, which combines the innately unsettling and the supernatural. Coyle, known for his work as Mr. Bates in DOWNTON ABBEY (which this critic has admittedly never seen) proves a master at his craft in this production transferred from London’s Donmar Warehouse.

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I left the world premiere of Isaac Gomez’s LA RUTA at Steppenwolf Theatre Company with a heavy heart, yet one that was also full as I admired the immense work of the all-female Latinx ensemble. Gomez’s necessarily tragic play focuses on Mexican women who live in Ciudad Juárez and have been disappearing along the bus route home from their factory jobs. LA RUTA handles its devastating subject matter with compelling gravitas (Gomez conducted several interviews to bring the play to life). Through his strong and deeply human characters, Gomez gives voice to this tragedy without ever sliding into a didactic tone.

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Ike Holter’s RIGHTLYND sets into motion the central theme of the tension between political idealism and the realities that come with power in a complicated, often stagnant political machine. The first in Holter’s seven play cycle all focusing on Rightlynd, the fictional 51st ward of Chicago, this world premiere focuses on Nina Esposito. Nina is a resident of Rightlynd, who still mourns the closing of her mother’s corner store, Esposito Express, as the neighborhood faces gentrification. No longer content with the shifting changes in her neighborhood, Nina runs for alderman of the 51st ward with the hopes of protecting her home. But when she wins the office, will Nina be able to turn her idealistic plans into reality, or will she become another cog in the Chicago political machine? In RIGHTLYND, Holter sets up this tension not just in Nina’s trajectory, but seems to set up this theme of power and change for the cycle as a whole.

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BoHo Theatre’s production of Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones’s 110 IN THE SHADE makes the central, fierce, independent female character of Lizzie Curry take center stage. This is particularly true because Neala Barron’s expert performance anchors every moment. Barron mines her character for the maximum amount of meaning and layers she can find: she makes us feel Lizzie’s strong-willed, intelligent presence while also conveying a deep sense of longing to find a husband and start a family. 110 IN THE SHADE strikes a chord precisely because these two facets of Lizzie’s character are not presented as irreconcilable: rather, Lizzie is simultaneously pragmatic and ambitious in her desires. With direction by outgoing Artistic Director Peter Marston Sullivan and music direction by Ellen Morris, Barron also thrives in each musical number backed by a 3-piece orchestra.

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In Timeline Theatre Company’s MASTER CLASS, Chicago favorite Janet Ulrich Brooks schools the audience with her commanding performance as famous opera singer Maria Callas.

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Cue the jazz hands—Stephen Schwartz and Roger O. Hirson’s PIPPIN has arrived at Mercury Theater’s Venus Cabaret in an intimate staging that brings the actors and the audience together. Mercury Artistic Director L. Walter Stearns’s interprets this cabaret production of PIPPIN in a literal manner: the show’s visual references and presentational style are highly influenced by the 1920s Weimar cabaret in Germany. Thus, the fictional story of Charlemagne’s son Pippin does not at all take place in medieval times but rather seems to occupy a moment all its own. Given the eccentricities in the material for PIPPIN itself, this is a fitting choice.

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Victory Gardens Theater’s Chicago premiere of Paula Vogel’s Tony nominated INDECENT weaves a beautiful narrative about the transcendence of art and human resilience. Director Gary Griffin’s staging feels both grandiose and intimate at the same time; the play’s action spans a time period from 1906-1950 and travels across continents, but the vignettes contained in Vogel’s story are rife with genuine, powerful human emotion. INDECENT was inspired by the true story of the 1923 Broadway debut of Jewish playwright Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance, which had an illicit lesbian romance as one of its main plot points. Vogel’s story charts God of Vengeance’s journey from the moment Asch first presents the script to his wife through to its first reading and multiple staged productions.

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Firebrand Theatre’s second season opens with a poignantly fitting musical choice: composer Jeanine Tesori and librettist Tony Kushner’s CAROLINE, OR CHANGE. In the musical from this renowned writing team, protagonist Caroline Thibodeaux, a black woman working as a maid for a white Jewish family in 1963 Lake Charles, Louisiana goes on a powerful journey of self-discovery. Firebrand, in partnership with TimeLine Theatre Company, has made a production choice that fits the company’s feminist mission like a glove.

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