The Tribune’s Chris Jones picks his top 10 opening plays and musicals.
With the 2010s now toast, and the Year of Chicago Theatre now officially replaced by the Year of Chicago Music, our muchloved Chicago theater opens up a challenging new decade of homegrown artistic attractions.
And we’ll all have to survive without “Hamilton.”
So, as we reluctantly face the January of the 2020s, assuming we count our decades that way, what especially promising shows will guide us through the rest of the winter, not to mention life thereafter?
While advance predictions are never a substitute for informed recommendations, here is an alphabetical list of 10 upcoming shows that will have me both hopeful and excited to slide into my seat.
“An American in Paris”: The long-lived Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace faces the 2020s with real ambition, and its January presentation of this George Gershwin musical, a work filled with dance, is prima facie evidence of its expanded sense of artistic purpose. As seen on Broadway in 2015, where it was produced by the Chicagoan Stuart Oken and directed and choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon, “American in Paris” is based on a modernist and experimental 1928 Gershwin work, as famously adapted into a movie wherein Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron danced through the City of Light. At Drury Lane, Lynne Kurdziel Formato directs. Jan. 31 to March 29 at Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace; 630-530-0111 or drurylane theatre.com
“Bug”: The most-anticipated show of the new year in Chicago, with interest coming from across the country, is this revival of the bizarre Tracy Letts play set in an Oklahoma hotel room. It will feature Carrie Coon, the acclaimed Chicago actress (and wife of the playwright), working with the auteur Broadway director David Cromer, the man responsible for “The Band’s Visit” and the legendary Chicago “Our Town.” Coon is now a celebrity, following successes in TV drama, and there will be a clamor for tickets. Jan. 23 to March 8 at Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St.; 312-335-1650 or www.steppenwolf.org
“Emma”: The author Jane Austen has proved popular with Chicago theater audiences. “Emma,” based on Austen’s 1815 novel, the last to be completed and published during her lifetime, is a full-blown new musical with a score from Paul Gordon, who previously adapted “Sense and Sensibility” and “Jane Eyre.” With Lora Lee Gayer in the title role, Barbara Gaines directs a show hoping for a life beyond Chicago. Jan. 28 to March 15 at Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier; 312-595-5600 or www.chicagoshakes.com
“Her Honor Jane Byrne”: The Lookingglass Theatre was quiet last fall when it came to new work. Presumably, this venerable Chicago company was gearing up for “Her Honor Jane Byrne,” a rare Lookingglass foray into Chicago’s political history and, more specifically, the city’s first woman mayor. J. Nicole Brooks sets her muchanticipated play in 1981, when years of urban neglect in Chicago are coming home to roost and Byrne decides to move into the public housing project known as Cabrini-Green. Feb. 26 to April 12 at Lookingglass Theatre, 821 N. Michigan Ave.; 312-3370665 or www.looking glasstheatre.org
“How to Defend Yourself”: In this new play from Liliana Padilla, developed at this theater in workshops, seven collegeaged women find themselves in a self-defense program that turns out to be a catalyst for emotions from anger to desire. The play, which focuses on young women now very much aware of the possibility of a sexual attack, won the Yale Prize for Drama last year and premiered at the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s famed Humana Festival of New American Plays. Marti Lyons directs. Jan. 24 to Feb. 23 at Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave.; 773-871-3000 or www.victorygardens.org
“Once on This Island”: The first national tour of the exuberant 2017 Broadway revival of the muchloved musical by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens is well timed for the middle of a Chicago winter, offering Chicagoans a chance to escape to warmer climes for some passionate storytelling and charming island tunes. We’ll have to see how well an immersive production conceived for a theater in the round translates to a large proscenium stage at the Cadillac Palace. Jan. 21 to Feb. 2 at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph St.; 800-775-2000 and www.broadwayin chicago.com
“Roe”: Playwright Lisa Loomer’s carefully balanced drama looks at the political and social history of abortion in the United States, focusing especially on the real woman behind the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case: Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff who became known by a pseudonym and Sarah Weddington, her 26-year-old lawyer. This is the first Chicago production of a play being produced at many regional theaters this season. The hugely talented Vanessa Stalling directs at the Goodman. Jan. 18 to Feb. 23 at the Goodman’s Albert Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St.; 312-443-3800 and www.goodmantheatre.org
“Sheepdog”: The busy activist-director Wardell Julius Clark is at the helm of a two-character police drama by Kevin Artigue. Widely admired after being produced at South Coast Rep this past spring, the play looks at two romantically involved police officers, one of whom is white and the other African American. Their lives are upended following an officer-involved shooting. Leslie Ann Sheppard and Drew Schad star. Jan. 16 to Feb. 29 at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave.; 773-9758150 or www.sgtheatre.org
“Verboten”: After a fallow period, the venerable House Theater of Chicago is back with the world premiere of an original musical, featuring a book by the Chicago playwright Brett Neveu and music and lyrics by Jason Narducy. Set in 1983, “Verboten” is all about a punk rock band made up of Chicago teenagers, hoping to make their mark at the Cubby Bear before their parents put the kibosh on their fledgling music careers. Nathan Allen directs. Jan. 16 to March 8 at Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division St.; 773769-3832 or www.the housetheatre.com
“What the Constitution Means to Me”: For most politically oriented feminists and progressives, Heidi Schreck’s self-performed, one-woman story of her morphing relationship to the Constitution of the United States was the most exciting show on Broadway last season. The piece — part memoir, part academic analysis, part a liberal call to arms — is now touring, but not with its author. The actress Maria Dizzia, known for her work on stage and TV, is taking the role of “Heidi.” March 4 to April 12 at the Broadway Playhouse, 175 E. Chestnut St.; 800-775-2000 and www .broadwayinchicago.com