Flowers Out Of Season, People’s Theater of Chicago at EP Theater, through Feb. 3. Intense performances of excruciating intimacy in the EP’s Cornell-Box of a playhouse make this ambiguous tale of suicidal despair worth the odyssey to Pilsen. MSB
Machos, Teatro Luna at Berwyn Cultural Center, through Feb. 17. The drag-king performances in this savvy revue are so good and insightful that you sometimes forget that it is women playing these macho Latino men. SCM
My Fair Lady, Cadillac Palace, through Feb. 3. Diction is destiny in Lerner and Loewe’s take on Shaw’s extreme makeover classic, Pygmalion. Sumptuous score and aspirant h’s merge as a Cockney flower girl blooms and rebels as tutored by a dashing grammarian.CS
Requiem for a Heavyweight, Shattered Globe at Victory Gardens Greenhouse, through March 8. Rod Serling’s truthful tale of a washed-up boxer and his manager scores a hard right to the heart in this perfectly acted rendition, the first don’t-miss show of 2008. JA
—By Abarbanel, Barnidge,
Morgan and Sullivan