With its lushly beautiful, ideally performed production of the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical, Music Theater Works has an instant hit on its hands. But you had better move fast if you want to catch it.

Full of raw emotion, Isaac Gomez’s play, now receiving its world premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre, explores the brutal killing of hundreds of women and girls in Ciudad Juárez between 1993 and 2013.

The eternal themes that drive “Fiddler on the Roof” made it an instant classic, but the new touring production featuring contemporary additions makes the show feel uneven.

Despite a number of fine performances and a gorgeous “flower power” set, the whole thing ends up feeling more clunky and exhausting than beguiling. Subtle it is not, and often the poetry and emotion get lost.

Six powerful works by the exceptional dance company – including two true masterpieces – explored everything from social issues and personal endurance to a spiritual search.

The theater company’s new home in Evanston marks a grand, and grandly deserved step upward. Its opening production looks at what happens when men lose their well-paying factory jobs and self-respect.

If you are in search of fresh choreographic talent, why not turn to the dancers who are right under foot in your own studio? Sometimes, this makes perfect sense. But as revealed in “dance(e)volve New Works Festival,” there can be drawbacks to this effort.

Alternately farcical and romantic, this very French rendering of the Cinderella story has arrived on the Lyric Opera stage for the very first time in an altogether enchanting production.

Now in its third season, the Joffrey Ballet’s radiant and altogether ingenious production of choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s Chicago-themed reinvention of “The Nutcracker” is more luminous than ever. 

In his new book, Chris Jones – my colleague-on-the-aisle in Chicago since the 1990s – has chronicled the American theater in a singularly creative way.

With great bursts of raucous humor, as well as zany rom-com moments and deep anguish, playwright Danai Gurira infuses her exuberantly boisterous play with issues of family contention that go well beyond the usual disputes.

At Paramount Theatre, director-choreographer Amber Mak and her sensational team of actors and designers magically pay homage to the emotional richness of the 1939 film while incorporating some of the newest tricks of technology.

The new touring production of the epic show could not be more elaborate, but it trades more in shock value than pathos, and loses something in the process.

From monsters and novelists to a depressed construction foreman in Belarus, the Chicago theater scene is as varied as ever. Hedy Weiss joins us with reviews and recommendations.

To bring Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” to vivid life, director Mary Zimmerman looks to the English pantomime tradition, and draws on her ingenious, visually stunning storytelling tricks.

Watching Northlight Theatre’s luminous world premiere stage version of Jane Austen’s third published novel, it was impossible not to wonder what the writer might make of her enduring cult status among 21st century audiences.