15 must-see shows during Chicago Theatre Week 2024

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There’s no better time to experience the city’s vibrant theatre scene than Chicago Theatre Week. This highly anticipated event, now in its 12th year, offers theatre-goers a chance to catch shows all around Chicago for a steep discount — just $15 or $30 a ticket (or less!).

This year’s event runs from Feb. 18 – 28, 2024, featuring exciting productions that represent the extraordinary range of the city’s theatre scene. Need help narrowing it down? Check out some of our must-see shows for Chicago Theatre Week 2024 and get your tickets today

Downtown

Girl From The North Country at Broadway In Chicago at CIBC Theatre

It’s 1934 in Duluth, Minnesota. We meet a group of wayward travelers whose lives intersect in a guesthouse filled with music, life, and hope. Written and directed by celebrated playwright Conor McPherson and featuring Tony Award-winning orchestrations by Simon Hale, Girl From The North Country reimagines 20 legendary songs of Bob Dylan as they’ve never been heard before, including “Forever Young,” “All Along The Watchtower,” “Hurricane,” “Slow Train Coming,” and “Like A Rolling Stone.”

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Illinoise at Chicago Shakespeare Theater

Grammy and Oscar-nominated Sufjan Stevens’ acclaimed album enjoys cult status for its lush orchestrations and wildly inventive portrayal of our state’s people and places—landing on “best of the decade” lists in Rolling Stone, NPR, and Paste. Now, one of today’s most in-demand directors and choreographers, Tony Award winner Justin Peck (New York City Ballet, Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story), embraces the album in an ecstatic pageant of storytelling, theater, dance, and music, with a narrative crafted with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury. The virtuosic cast and a live band lead audiences on a journey through our state—from campfire stories to the edges of the cosmos.

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Highway Patrol at Goodman Theatre

Emmy Award-winner Dana Delany (China Beach, Desperate Housewives) stars in this new thriller—part love story, part ghost story—crafted from hundreds of tweets and DMs.

“@DanaDelany, Are you married? If not, I’d marry you.” When Cam, a 13-year-old fan in a desperate medical situation captures actress Dana Delany’s attention on Twitter, she’s quickly swept into an intense, around-the-clock online friendship. But when Cam starts receiving messages from beyond, Dana is thrust into a world where unexpected revelations raise the question of how far we go to love and be loved.

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Cinderella at Lyric Opera of Chicago

Rossini’s enchanting fairytale heroine returns to the Lyric Opera of Chicago stage in classic style. Cinderella tells the story of the downtrodden daughter of a selfish father, Don Magnifico. When Prince Ramiro (disguised as his own valet, Dandini) meets her, they fall instantly in love, leading — after a few complications — to a heartwarming happy ending. Rossini’s score provides endless sparkle, with Cinderella’s and Ramiro’s arias abounding in fabulous vocal virtuosity. There’s also hilarity, thanks to the antics of Magnifico and Dandini.

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Anything Goes at Porchlight Music Theatre

Chicago will get a kick out of this 90th anniversary production of Cole Porter’s smash-hit musical comedy, Anything Goes starring the Chicago-based international sensation Meghan Murphy as “Reno Sweeney.” Launching Porchlight’s 29th season, this legendary toe-tapping voyage across the Atlantic is filled with laughs, romance, intrigue and, of course, lots of tap dancing in this farcical and merry musical classic. Porter’s iconic score includes a shipload of tunes that built the Great American Songbook including “Anything Goes,” “Friendship,” “You’re the Top” and “I Get a Kick Out of You.”

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Neighborhood theatres

Antigone at Court Theatre in Hyde Park

As Antigone mourns her brothers who have murdered each other in a civil war, she must decide if she will sacrifice her life to balance the scales of justice. Her victorious brother is posthumously exalted; her treasonous brother is left unburied by order of King Creon, Antigone’s uncle and adversary. Antigone deliberately defies the king’s edict and buries her traitorous brother, igniting a devastating chain of events and thrusting urgent questions of justice to the fore.

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Notes from the Field at TimeLine Theatre in Lakeview

Hailed by The New York Times as a “searing and urgent work that confronts some of the most pressing issues of our time with honesty, intelligence, and compassion,” this innovative first-person documentary piece shines a light on the stories of those caught in America’s school-to-prison pipeline. Utilizing verbatim dialogue pulled from more than 250 real accounts from students, faculty, prisoners, activists, politicians, and victims’ families, Notes From the Field takes audiences on a powerful and emotional journey through the faults and systemic injustices of the American criminal justice system.

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MOTHERS at The Gift Theatre at Filament Theatre in Old Irving Park

Three moms, a stay-at-home dad, and a nanny watch their kids play at Mommy-Baby Meetup. One mom is the queen bee and one is here to shake things up. The dad just wants to fit in, and the nanny doesn’t say a word. When catastrophe comes, the five of them have to figure out how to survive a war and each other. MOTHERS examines the primal heartache of raising children in a disintegrating world.

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La pinche india at Aguijon Theater in Belmont Craigin

Gigi is an upper-class girl who one day wakes up turned into an indigenous woman. Given her new appearance, her life changes completely and she begins to realize all the privileges she had as a green-eyed blonde. Her search for a new identity leads her to discover a great secret that had always been there: racial discrimination.

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In Quietness at A Red Orchid Theatre in Old Town

A former consultant follows her born-again husband to a Southern Baptist seminary. There, she enrolls as a student at the Homemaking House, the nation’s premier training ground for future homemakers and a place where marital bliss means never having to say thank you for cleaning the toilet. In Quietness asks us all to consider how fidelity to self, family, community, and faith coexist as we work to manifest our futures.

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Suburban theatres

In The Heights at Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire

The 2008 Tony Award-winning Best Musical from the creator of Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda! In The Heights tells the story of a vibrant community in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood – a place where the coffee from the corner bodega is light and sweet, the windows are always open and the breeze carries the rhythm of three generations of music. It’s a community on the brink of change, full of hopes, dreams and pressures, where the biggest struggles can be deciding which traditions you take with you, and which ones you leave behind.

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Fiddler on the Roof at Drury Lane Theatre in Oak Brook Terrace

Set in the little village of Anatevka, the story of Tevye and his five daughters has been touching audiences worldwide with its humor, warmth, and honesty for generations.  With the help of a colorful and tight-knit Jewish community, Tevye tries to protect his daughters and instill them with traditional values in the face of political and social change in Czarist Russia. Rich in historical detail, Fiddler on the Roof’s universal theme of tradition cuts across barriers of race, class, nationality, and religion, leaving audiences crying tears of laughter, joy, and sadness.

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Billy Elliot at Paramount Theatre in Aurora

The music of Elton John brings to life the story of Billy Elliot, an 11-year-old English boy who stumbles upon a ballet class during his weekly boxing lesson. His surprise love for dance must be hidden at all costs, especially from his coal miner father. With the help of his sharp-tongued teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson, Billy gets the chance to attend a prestigious ballet school and must decide what is most important: doing what he loves or doing what other people want. Billy Elliot is a coming-of-age story that inspires us all to do what you love no matter what other people think.

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Selling Kabul at Northlight Theatre at North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie

Taroon once served as an interpreter for the U.S. military in Afghanistan. Now that the Americans have withdrawn — along with their promises of protection — Taroon spends his days in hiding, a target of the increasingly powerful Taliban. On the day his son is born, he must choose between staying concealed in his sister’s apartment or risking his life to see his child.

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The Band’s Visit at Writers Theatre in Glencoe

In a small Israeli desert town where every day feels the same, a lost bus arrives carrying an Egyptian Police Band. With no hotel and no buses until morning, the musicians are taken in for the night by the locals. Under the spell of the desert sky, these misplaced musicians bring everyone together in the way that only music can. Winner of 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, The Band’s Visit is a beautifully intimate show, perfectly suited for the Nichols Theatre, about the unifying power of music.

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