OPENINGS
Friday
“Good Boys and True” — through Feb. 16 by Steppenwolf Theatre Company, 1650 N. Halsted St.; $20-$68, 312-335-1650 and www.steppenwolf.org. Eschewing the usual feel-good holiday fare, Steppenwolf Theatre Company premieres a much-anticipated new work by the hot playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa about a sex scandal in a prep school. Pam MacKinnon directs a cast that includes Steppenwolf artistic director Martha Lavey.
“Spirit of Christmas” — through Dec. 22 at Paramount Theatre, 23 East Galena Blvd., Aurora; $35.50-$45.50, 630-896-6666 or TicketMaster and www.theparamounttheatre.com. This seasonal variety attraction is in the Radio City style, complete with high-kicking chorus girls, carols and other elements of festive spectacle. It’s suitable for the whole family.
Saturday
“Oklahoma!” — through Dec. 31 by Light Opera Works at Cahn Auditorium; $28-$80, 847-869-6300 www.lightoperaworks.com. The Evanston-based Light Opera Works offers a new production of the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, replete with a full-sized orchestra playing the original orchestrations. Artistic director Rudy Hogenmiller is in charge of farmers and cowmen.
Wednesday
“Cirque Dreams: Jungle Fantasy” — through Dec. 31 at Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State St.; $20-$57.50, 312-902-1500 or www.thechicagotheatre.com. In an attempt to snag some holiday business in the Loop, Jam Theatricals is presenting this touring family show from producer Neil Goldberg (best known for “Cirque Ingenieux”). This newest piece is billed as a “dreamscape of nighttime imagery” and features acrobats, aerialists and contortionists on and above the stage of the Chicago Theatre.
CLOSINGS, last chance
Saturday
“It’s Only the End of the World” — This play is the work of one of France’s most admired playwrights. (Jean Luc Lagarce died of AIDS in 1995 at the age of 38) and got its U.S. premiere from the progressive TUTA Theatre Chicago. It’s fundamentally about adult children returning home to visit, and the emotional, intellectual and ethical complications those visits invariably provoke. At Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division St.; $22, 847-217-0691.
Sunday
“Defiance” — Set on a Marine Corps barracks in 1971 and penned in 2006 as a semi-autobiographical sequel to John Patrick Shanley’s astoundingly successful “Doubt,” “Defiance” is about the collision of personal values and community conformity. Especially in the scenes between Steve Pickering and Laura T. Fisher, the show by Next Theatre Company ratchets up the tension and evokes just the right whiff of spontaneous danger. At the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes St., Evanston; $23-$38, 847-475-1875.
“Scrooge, The Musical” — If fidelity to Dickensian character and Victorian dignity is a crucial part of your seasonal pleasure, then this “Scrooge” ain’t your show. Leslie Bricusse’s daffy 1970 British musical messes with character names and lightens up narrative events. But only “Scrooge” comes with this great, populist score. At Theatre at the Center, 1040 Ridge Rd., Munster, Ind.; $36-39, 219-836-3255.
“Tesla’s Letters” — Nikola Tesla was the father of AC current. In Jeffrey Stanley’s heady-but-passionate 1991 drama, the playwright sees America’s shabby treatment of the Croatian-born but proudly Serbian Tesla as a metaphor for its lack of interest in the genocidal conflict of the 1990s that ripped apart Yugoslavia. The early sections of the show are tough going, due to extensive unsubtle exposition. But “Tesla’s Letters” eventually wins you over by the soundness of its conceit and the human weight of its arguments. By TimeLine Theatre Company, 615 W. Wellington Ave.; $15-$30, 773-281-8463.
