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
Good People, Steppenwolf Theatre, through Nov. 11. K. Todd Freeman directs an engrossing production of David Lindsay-Abaire’s masterful examination of the growing class divide in modern-day America. SCM
The Iron Stag King, House Theatre of Chicago at the Chopin, through Oct. 21. Knights, wizards, pirates, Founding Fathers, Native-American tricksters, witches, eagles, snakes, dragons and coyotes—and this is just part one! It’s from the folks who brought you San Valentino and the Melancholy Kid back in 2004. 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