The Ballad of Lefty & Crabbe, Underscore Theatre, through July 14—Jokes, puns and nonsense fly at you fast and furious in this lickety-split new musical about two comedians transitioning from vaudeville to Hollywood circa 1927. JA
Prophet$, Factory Theater, through July 20. The golden-calf age of huckster televangelism may be 20th century history now, but the Factory still thinks we should be warned to beware of false you-know-what. MSB
Ms. Blakk for President, Steppenwolf Theatre, through July 21—The past is very present in Tarell Alvin McCraney and Tina Landau’s deliberately rough-around-the-edges collaboration about Chicago drag queen Joan Jett Blakk and her 1992 protest candidacy for Prez. SCM
Emma, Lifeline Theatre, through July 28. Five agile actors, playing a score of fashionable fools, conduct a delightfully giddy chase on a stage barely bigger than a tea tray in Jane Austen’s regency-period romantic comedy. MSB.
—By Mary Shen Barnidge and Morgan