At Mister Kelly’s For more almost two decades, 1957 to 1975, Chicago’s Mister Kelly’s was a springboard for talent. From Barbra Streisand and Barry Manilow to Bette Midler and (trigger warning) Bill Cosby, the iconic Rush Street supper club and cabaret was a rotating door for emerging comedians and musicians. Time, taste, and technology have eroded these institutions, but in this immersive experience, created as a valentine to the era by Jason Paul Smith, with music and arrangements by Gary Gimmestad, you can put on your pinup best or Mad Men attire to enjoy a night within Three Cat Productions’ imaginative time capsule. This revival features an ensemble of budding Chicago talent who offer a crisp perspective on our favorite artists through impersonations, stories, and the quintessential songs that defined the age. It’s not a perfect show, but it’s damn good fun—and the three-piece jazz band is on point. —A.J. Sørensen
Eurydice Not unlike Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses, Sarah Ruhl’s 2005 mythological redux updates a classical tragedy with anachronistic language and ethereal visual touches. Mourning her late wife, Orpheus (Chloe Dzielak) composes a song so heartbreaking that it reaches the stones and vanishing souls in the underworld below. Charles Riffenburg’s intimate production for BoHo Theatre capitalizes on superb and subtly affecting sound design by Joshua Wentz to create an atmosphere that heightens Ruhl’s imaginative and rich poetry. It’s a moving ensemble effort throughout, and as Eurydice, Amanda Jane Long delivers a nuanced, childlike, grief-stricken performance that perfectly conveys the play’s complicated and contradictory ideas about death and longing. —Dan Jakes
Satie et Cocteau Mike Czuba’s tangled metatheatrical dark comedy imagines a one-on-one rehearsal between French writer Jean Cocteau and his nameless lover/lead actor portraying minimalist composter Erik Satie, Cocteau’s late former lover. Part biodrama, part surreal play within a play, Czuba’s script oscillates between heady platitudes about the creative process and a bloodless romance between an opium addict and an alcoholic, or so we’re told—neither actor in this Genesis Theatricals production evolves beyond unvarying line readings and lightly comedic quips, much less becomes intoxicated. Though Satie’s music is sprinkled throughout, there’s little rhythm or musicality in the show itself—what is billed as a love-hate relationship for the ages comes across instead as a purely cerebral affair. —Dan Jakes
