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Best Local in February 2025

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical at Drury Lane Theatre Oakbrook Terrace

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical

Tracing the career of Carole King, and endorsed by the beloved Grammy winner herself, Beautiful was the feel-good Broadway hit of 2014, scoring two Tony Awards. Described by The New York Times as "A complex, revitalizing portrait of the real, conflicted person within the reluctant star", enjoy this new staging from Drury Lane Theatre, here to inspire from January 2025.

Fat Ham at Owen Goodman Theater

Fat Ham

James Ijames' Pulitzer Prize-winning play comes to you! Fat Ham is a wildly imaginative and socially-charged reimagining of Shakespeare's classic, Hamlet. Instead of a Danish castle however, this time our story takes place at a BBQ cookout in Southern America where Juicy, a queer college student, must decide whether to avenge his father's death or carve a new path for his future.

Jaja's African Hair Braiding at Chicago Shakespeare Theater

Jaja's African Hair Braiding

After critical success on Broadway, Jocelyn Bioh's Jaja's African Hair Braiding comes to the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, directed by Whitney White! Ghanaian-American writer and actor Bioh previously penned the emotional comedy School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, which won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play. Whitney White is an award-winning director, musician, and actor and is the recipient of an Obie Award and a Lilly Award.

A Midsummer Night's Dream at Chicago Shakespeare Theater

A Midsummer Night's Dream

This season, don't miss the Bard's wondrous supernatural rom-com as the magic comes to you in this local production. A delightful and dizzying tale that still enraptures audiences after 400 years, prepare to enter a realm where a tiff between fairy royalty gets very, very out of hand, affecting supernatural folk and mortals alike!