The 2025-2026 theater season has been the biggest one since the COVID shutdown, with well over 50 shows opening by the end of October. And yet . . . it still is not as many as before, when the new season meant 50 openings every month.
Theater companies without permanent homes have fewer places at which to produce plays, with the loss of such multi-stage venues as Victory Gardens Theater, Theatre Building and Pride Arts, among others. Also, neither audience numbers nor funding are back to pre-pandemic levels, while costs rise and federal arts funding has been murdered by the Artless Dodger in the White House. One result is that companies that used to produce five shows now produce four, or those which produced four now are producing three. And most productions have shorter runs: five weeks instead of eight weeks, four instead of six.
Nonetheless, we can be thankful for what we do still have in Chicago, which remains most creative theater city in the nation. The troupes telling tales of our LGBTQ+ communities remain diverse and strong, with new works in sharp focus as always. So far this season we’ve already had A New Brain, Pride Arts’s buoyant and imaginative staging of the William Finn/James LaPine musical about a young gay composer facing brain surgery; Open Space Arts’s Gangsta Baby, about a gay sex worker in a working-class English city who must confront his homophobic and criminal father; and Say Gay Plays, four newly-commissioned short plays from LGBTQ+ authors, presented by About Face Theatre & Silk Road Cultural Center last month at Northeastern Illinois University.
Several promising productions will be debuting between now and the end of the year:
Rooted, Bramble Theatre Company (5545 N. Clark St., Andersonville), Oct. 9-Nov. 2—This world premiere by Ben F. Locke concerns three BIPOC queer witches who resurrect a witch from their coven to help them grapple with rapid change and the possible loss of their ancestral home. Bramble describes it as a queer romantic comedy about sisterhood and the worth of our sacrifices and magic.
The Pilon, Red Theatre, at The Edge (1155 W. Catalpa at Broadway, Edgewater), Oct. 25-Nov. 23—A world premiere by Zach Barr, The Pilon is set in a Seattle sports card shop where a trans teen walks in with a card worth a fortune, forcing the store owner and regulars to re-evaluate why they collect cards at all, as well as their concept of maleness.
The Rocky Horror Show, Brightside Theatre (Naperville), Oct. 24-Nov. 9—Are the neighbors ready for a genderfuck classic in the heart of Naperville? We don’t know if Brightside is encouraging folks to come in costume or not, but we look forward to this one with antici . . . . . . . . pation!
As You Like It, Writers Theatre (Glencoe), Oct. 30-Dec. 14—One of William Shakespeare’s several genderfuck plays, where real adolescent boys playing young female characters disguised themselves as men so that male characters could fall in love with them, although all the characters really are straight. Well, you won’t see it at the dragless Kennedy Center anymore, but it still packs them in after 400+ years. Although the original is filled with songs, this is a new musical version with music and lyrics by Shaina Taub, the Tony Award-winning composer of Suffs.
There are, of course, scores of shows which are not specifically LGBTQ+ in theme or content, although we all know that members of our communities are involved in almost any work of theater. Your best source for comprehensive information is the League of Chicago Theatres website, chicagoplays.com. In addition to exhaustive calendar listings (which also include opera, classical music, dance, one-night events and more), the site offers a link to Hot Tix, the League’s discount ticket program. With the performing arts cheapened, demeaned and diminished under federal attack, your favorite troupe or company needs you to buy tickets, subscribe and/or make a donation more than ever. So take your favorite guy or girl or non-binary to dinner and a show this season!
Jonathan Abarbanel is a member of the American Theatre Critics/Journalists Association and a former Windy City Times theater editor. His reviews can be heard each Sunday on “The Arts Section” on WDCB-FM Public Radio.