As You Like It, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, through March 6. Director Gary Griffin’s concept is no concept: He guides its comedy and romance with an invisible but steady hand, thereby allowing the play to sing for itself, clear to all comprehensions. JA
The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Shattered Globe Theatre at Athenaeum Theatre, through Feb. 27. A revitalized Shattered Globe Theatre picks up the pieces of this almost defunct company to produce a strong and dramatically satisfying staging of Martin McDonagh’s bleak and violent Irish drama. SCM
Carmilla, WildClaw Theatre at the Storefront, through Feb. 20. Forget Bram Stoker and his masculine posturing—the vampire legend as we know it began with its women, and WildClaw delves its romanticist roots with this erotic no-giggles prototype starring cult divas-in-training Michaela Petro and Brittany Burch. MSB
Eclipsed, Northlight Theatre, through Feb. 20. Danai Gurira’s drama set amid the recent Liberian Civil War is a disturbing, yet compelling, examination of the choices that women have to make in order to survive amid a soul-crushing conflict. SCM
—By Abarbanel, Barnidge
and Morgan