Billy Elliot, Porchlight Music Theatre at Ruth Page Center, extended through Dec. 31. Porchlight’s new venue provides space for this big dance show and it’s gangbusters! It features an excellent cast, outstanding band, fine choreography and Elton John’s finest theater score in the tale of a Brit coal miner’s son who discovers ballet. JA
Breath, Boom, Eclipse Theatre at Athenaeum Theatre, through Dec. 17. Kia Corthron’s gritty stereotype-refuting portrait of female gang-banger culture is intensified by the intimacy of its staging in the Athenaeum’s studio. MSB
Fade, Victory Gardens Theater, through Dec. 23. Tanya Saracho reverses the familiar Hollywood-is-Full-of-Greedheads formula t warn us just how easy it is to become one yourself if you’re not careful. MSB
Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery, Pegasus Theatre Chicago at Chicago Dramatists, through Dec. 10. Shay Youngblood’s 1998 memory play about caring and complex African-American women in the 1960s may be disjointed, but it provides great individual scenes for powerful performances in director Ilesa Duncan’s strong revival. SCM
—By Abarbanel, Barnidge and Morgan