Blackbird, Victory Gardens Theatre at the Biograph, through Aug. 16. If you didn’t know their ages, would your social conditioning make this reunion of star-crossed lovers any less romantic? David Harrower’s play will test the limits of your compassion. MSB
Footloose, Theatre at the Center (Munster, Ind.), through Aug. 16. This musical version of the 1984 film is energized by dancer/singer Matt Raftery as rebel Ren in a square midwest town that’s more Tulsa than Terre Haute. Clichéd story but well sung and danced. JA
Macbeth, First Folio Theatre, through Aug. 9. Something wicked comes to Oak Brook, as director Nick Sandys anchors “The Scottish Play” firmly in its pagan roots. On a set evocative of both Stonehenge and the shadowlands of Osiris (terrific work by Angela Miller), the Thane of Cawdor’s feral netherworld is appropriately spooky. CS
A Minister’s Wife, Writers’ Theatre, through Aug. 16. This new musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Candida has generated positive buzz in the national press. Time is running out, so go now to see this work that compellingly stretches the boundaries of both musical theater and chamber opera. SCM
—By Abarbanel, Barnidge,
Morgan and Sullivan