Stage Top 5: August 2023

Jay Pharoah

1
MJ
(Broadway in Chicago)
Not our MJ, but rather the late king of pop in a song-and-dance extravaganza created by director-choreographer Christopher Wheeldon and playwright Lynn Nottage.
Starts August 1

2
Today, Tonight, Soon
(Theatre L’Acadie)
A world premiere by Melanie Coffey promises “a mixture of Regency romance and feminist dystopia,” performed on an actual beach.
Starts August 17

3
Kinky Boots
(Highland Park Players)
A thirty-five-year-old community theater mounts a musical in the new 570-seat McGrath Family Performing Arts Center. Sounds like the setup for a musical of its own, doesn’t it?
Starts August 18

4
The Innocence of Seduction
(City Lit)
The second of four plays recounting the history of comics, this one about the censorship movement in the fifties when comics were believed to lead kids astray.
Starts August 25

5
Jay Pharoah
(The Den)
The SNL alum tapes a comedy special.
August 26