Frost/Nixon, Timeline Theatre, through Oct. 10. Fine performances capture the private cat-and-mouse game between the disgraced ex-President and the brash Brit interviewer that made TV history in 1977. Peter Morgan’s play is a clever audience-pleaser. JA
Louis Slotin Sonata, A Red Orchid Theatre, through Oct. 24. As mothers love their babies, the techno-Frankenstein boys who invented nuclear weapons played with their new toy until it turned on its parents—a theme tailor-made for Red Orchid’s watch-and-warn mission. MSB
Romeo and Juliet, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, through Nov. 21. Classical and modern pieces blend perfectly in a physically gorgeous show in which the text drives the action instead of slowing it down to sound like poetry. Splendid wing-and-drop set. Stunning flesh. JA
Thieves Like Us, The House Theatre of Chicago at Chopin Theatre, through Oct. 30. This theatrically vibrant drama about Depression-era bank robbers has more heart and emotional involvement than Michael Mann’s disappointing 2009 John Dillinger flick Public Enemies. Take the money and run to see this. SCM
—By Abarbanel, Barnidge
and Morgan