Band Geeks, Single Box Turn at Live Bait Theatre, through Aug. 13. You may not know a busby from a bass drum—but you soon will cheer the underdogs of Elyria High School in this late-night summer sleeper with marching band moves by ROTC’s Mik Erwin. MSB
The Pain and the Itch, Steppenwolf, through Aug. 28. In the hands of a less skillful author, this beautifully acted and directed dark comedy would be ludicrous. Instead, author Bruce Norris brilliantly sees a dissolving American family as a microcosm of US geo-politics. JA
Sextet, Eclipse Theatre at Victory Gardens, through Sept. 11. Years before the boys in the band had their party, an aging drag queen looked back on her life in The Madness of Lady Bright, one of six short plays by gay Pulitzer Prize winning author Lanford Wilson. MSB
The Wild Party, Bohemian Theatre at Stage Left, through Aug. 13. Superb singing, clever choreography and a cookin’ band explode off a tiny storefront stage in this jazz-based tale of love, jealousy and death. It’s Off-Loop theater at its best, unexpected and dazzling. JA
— By Jonathan Abarbanel and Mary Shen Barnidge