33 Variations, TimeLine at Stage 773, through Oct. 21. Beethoven, a musical researcher and a concert pianist join forces for a theatrical look at two people at their creative peaks who are dying. They have relationship issues, too, and the pianist plays Beethoven’s variations live. JA
Marvin’s Room, Circle Theatre, through Sept. 30. The comic timing might not be as fine-tuned as it should be, but this laugh-filled drama involving family, disease and the ever-present threat of death is a lasting tribute to the late gay playwright Scott McPherson. SCM
Wrens, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, through Oct. 13. Author Anne McGravie was there and witnessed it firsthand, making for bunker-drama suspense and sorority in a Scottish barracks, when her squad of servicewomen are confronted with an injured comrade-in-arms needing their support during the final days of World War II. MSB
Xanadu, Drury Lane Theatre, Oakbrook Terrace, through Oct. 28. Thank out playwright Douglas Carter Beane for creating a comically campy new script for this hit 2007 Broadway jukebox musical that lovingly savages the bizarre original 1980 film involving muses and a roller disco. SCM
—By Abarbanel, Barnidge
and Morgan