10 hot shows to see in Chicago this February

Chicago is known across the world for its innovative and vibrant live theatre scene. Add a performance (or two!) to your itinerary – plus, experience many shows on a budget with half-price theater tickets from Hot Tix!

Don’t miss Chicago Theatre Week – Feb. 16 – 26, 2023 – when tickets to participating productions are only $15 or $30, including everything on this list! All participating shows and offer details are listed at ChicagoTheatreWeek.com.

Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus LIVE!

Comedy
Broadway In Chicago at Broadway Playhouse
Playing Feb. 14 – 19
See the Chicago Theatre Week (Feb. 16 – 26) deal!

The Off-Broadway hit comedy Men Are From Mars – Women Are From Venus LIVE!, is a one-man fusion of theater and stand-up, and is a light-hearted theatrical comedy based on the New York Times #1 best-selling book of the last decade by John Gray. Check for half-price tickets at Hot Tix!

Wise Children’s Wuthering Heights

Musical
Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Now playing – Feb. 19  
See the Chicago Theatre Week (Feb. 16 – 26) deal!

Chicago Shakespeare’s WorldStage Series is back with a theatrical event that has thrilled audiences from London to New York and beyond. Emma Rice, one of the UK’s most visionary directors, infuses Brontë’s masterpiece with music and dance, as the wild moors of Yorkshire come alive in an epic story of love, revenge, and redemption. An orphaned Heathcliff is adopted by the Earnshaws and taken to live at Wuthering Heights, where he finds a kindred spirit in Catherine. As they grow up, a fierce love ignites between them—and when forced apart, a brutal chain of events is unleashed. Check for half-price tickets at Hot Tix!

Radial Gradient

Drama
Shattered Globe Theatre at Theater Wit
Now playing – March 11 
See the Chicago Theatre Week (Feb. 16 – 26) deal!

Three women enter a research study hoping to create positive change after a hate crime takes place at a liberal university in America. Timelines in 2017 and 2020 intertwine as participants unravel their complicated shared friendships and histories. Jasmine Sharma’s introspective and empowering new play, Radial Gradient, challenges what complicity looks like – what do we do if it looks like us? Check for half-price tickets at Hot Tix!

The Birthday Party

Comedy
City Lit Theater
Now playing – Feb. 26
See the Chicago Theatre Week (Feb. 16 – 26) deal!

A comedy of menace. Stanley may or may not play the piano, and today may or may not be his birthday, and he may or may not be hiding from someone in Meg’s boarding house where he’s lived for a year. But he’s definitely made nervous by news that two new boarders are about to arrive, and she’s definitely throwing him a party. The Birthday Party, Pinter’s first produced full-length play, propelled him into the front rank of British dramatists. Check for half-price tickets at Hot Tix! 

Toni Stone

Drama
Goodman Theatre
Now playing – Feb. 26
See the Chicago Theatre Week (Feb. 16 – 26) deal!

Toni Stone is an encyclopedia of baseball stats. She’s got a great arm. And she doesn’t understand why she can’t play with the boys. Rejected by the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League because of her race, Toni sets out to become the first woman to play in baseball’s Negro Leagues. Challenges on and off the field—from hostile crowds to players who slide spikes-first—only steel her resolve to shatter racist and sexist barriers in the sport she’s loved since childhood. An original play inspired by the book “Curveball, The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone” by Martha Ackmann, this New York Times Critic’s Pick will have you cheering along. Check for half-price tickets at Hot Tix!

Princess Ivona

Drama
Trap Door Theatre
Now playing – Feb. 18
See the Chicago Theatre Week (Feb. 16 – 26) deal!

Ivona, a woman of few words, is forcibly entangled into the intrigues of a dysfunctional royal court when she becomes Prince Philip’s fiancée. Soon, Ivona becomes a royal spoiler revealing to each courtier their vices and blemishes. Originally from Chicago, Jenny Beacraft returns from Spain to direct this Gombrowicz piece confronting ideas of personal identity, and the failure of existing value systems. Princess Ivona is a meditation on status, cruelty, and desire. Check for half-price tickets at Hot Tix!

Alaiyo

Drama
Definition Theatre at The Revival
Playing Feb. 3 – 26
See the Chicago Theatre Week (Feb. 16 – 26) deal!

When she realizes that she’s in love with her best friend Kofi, hopeless romantic Ariel sets out on a quest to tell him how she feels…and make a pilgrimage to the shores of Africa. Inspired by A Raisin in the Sun, Ariel seeks to heal a 400 year old wound through her journey toward selfhood. As she grapples with the gray space of being neither fully African nor fully American, she uncovers the darkest parts of herself and the sweet spots in her Black American identity. This choreopoem samples the old and makes space for the new as Ariel sails to Ghana to confess her love to Kofi. Check for half-price tickets at Hot Tix! 

Anna in the Tropics

Drama
Remy Bumppo Theatre Company at Theater Wit
Playing Feb. 8 – March 19
See the Chicago Theatre Week (Feb. 16 – 26) deal!

In a Cuban American cigar factory just outside Ybor City in 1929, a charismatic lector reads Anna Karenina aloud to pass the hours. As Anna’s passions are enunciated, the workers’ hidden desires bubble to the surface, becoming a powderkeg that must eventually explode in the Florida heat. Nilo Cruz’s passionate classic shines an unrelenting light on the search for identity in the American landscape. Check for half-price tickets at Hot Tix!

Right to be Forgotten

Drama
Raven Theatre
Playing Feb. 9 – March 26
See the Chicago Theatre Week (Feb. 16 – 26) deal!

The internet never forgets, and Derril Lark’s mistake at 17 haunts him online a decade later. Desperate for a normal life, he goes to extraordinary lengths to erase his indiscretion. But freedom of information is a big business, and the tech companies aren’t going down without a fight. Secrets, lies, and political backstabbing abound in this riveting new drama about one man’s fierce battle to reclaim his privacy by Primus Prize winning playwright Sharyn Rothstein (By the Water, Northlight Theatre). Don’t miss this striking Chicago premiere about human forgiveness in the age of the internet. Check for half-price tickets at Hot Tix!

one in two

Drama
PrideArts
Playing Feb. 16 – March 19
See the Chicago Theatre Week (Feb. 16 – 26) deal!

Three Black queer men sit in an ethereal waiting room. One is about to be chosen to live the unforgiving story of a man diagnosed with HIV, struggling to be defined by more than his status. Ten years after his own diagnosis, Donja R. Love has written a fearless account of the reality for too many Americans. A deeply personal call to action, one in two shines a light on the people behind a statistic and the strength of the community they make up. Check for half-price tickets at Hot Tix!

Note that the schedules included above are subject to change; visit the Hot Tix website for exact dates and half-price ticket availability. Visit ChicagoPlays.com to find other exciting productions on stage, and find insider guides to all things performing arts and the Chicago theatre scene to create your Chicago itinerary.