The Copperhead, City Lit Theatre, through May 15. A bit o’ history comes at you in this once-famous 1918 drama, bridging the gap between melodrama and realism. It’s about an Illinois family and the Civil War, which plenty of folks still remembered in 1918. JA.
Erratica, American Demigods at Second Stage Theatre, through May 14. When you’ve got the ghost of Christopher Marlowe playing cupid, the sexual reawakening of a stuffy English-lit professor suddenly acquires additional—uh, vigor in Reina Hardy’s smart little sleeper of a romantic comedy. MSB
Passing Strange, Bailiwick Chicago at Chicago Center for the Performing Arts, through May 29. JC Brooks and The Uptown Sound really rock it out in this funny and touching coming-of-age story of an African-American artist who leaves the conformity of suburban Los Angeles to find inspiration in Amsterdam and Berlin. SCM
Sex With Strangers, Steppenwolf Theatre, through May 15. Writers in love—preferably from another century—are a safe study for the classroom, but Stephen Louis Grush and Sally Murphy make Laura Eason’s tale of the blogger and the novelist sizzle with immediacy. MSB
—By Abarbanel, Barnidge
and Morgan