Ages of Man Theatre Above the Law presents three Thornton Wilder one-acts about how children relate to grown-ups. Wizened babies struggle to express complex thoughts while their adult caretakers can’t share simple ones, children playact themselves into understanding how much they need their parents, and teenagers realize the impossibility of walking in another’s shoes. This superb production moves nimbly from humor to heartbreak with spartan means, and the excellent cast juggle multiple roles effortlessly. Using little more than a patch of AstroTurf and a few chairs, they evoke entire worlds. This is likely the best storefront play I’ve seen all year. Tony Lawry directed. —Dmitry Samarov
The Legend of Georgia McBride This Chicago premiere of Matthew Lopez’s one-act follows a down-on-his-luck Elvis impersonator’s metamorphosis from the King into a drag queen. Casey, played by Nate Santana, experiences a perfect storm of life changes when he learns his rent check has bounced again, his wife is pregnant, and he’s losing his dive-bar Elvis gig to the owner’s drag-queen cousin. But pressure makes diamonds, and in this case it creates his alter ego, rhinestone cowgirl Georgia McBride. As drag mentor Miss Tracy Mills, Sean Blake steals the show with a regal bearing, real-talk attitude, and quippy one-liners. Sidekick Rexy, played with chutzpah by Jeff Kurysz, delivers an emotionally charged monologue about drag as protest—”a raised fist inside a sequined glove”—but drag’s history and role in the LGBTQ+ community goes largely unexplored. —Marissa Oberlander
Striking Out: A Gay Baseball Musical On the Annoyance’s main stage, directors Adam Levin and Ryan Ford run Take Me Out through The Twilight Zone. In a universe where all professional athletes are gay, straight Iowa farm boy Jimmy (Marco Braun) risks social stigma by pursuing his dream of playing for the Chicago Otters, a hard-partying gaggle of ebullient twinks in cutoffs. Both Braun and Olivia Nielsen (who plays Jimmy’s secret girlfriend) have vocal chops way above average for sketch-style musicals in comedy clubs, and Ford’s earwormy score is solid. This deep bench of naturally funny comedians—most of whom could read user agreements with good timing—shows that the straight-faced, big-hearted, absurdist tradition at the Annoyance is alive and well in the hands of a new generation of Chicago comics. —Dan Jakes
