Adapted by Dusty Brown and Elizabeth Swanson and directed by Swanson, this modern version reimagines all of the characters as part of the LGBTQ community. Set in Chicago’s Boystown and at a lake house in Michigan, Strawdog’s retelling focuses Wilde’s satirical wit on the social circles of wealthy Midwestern gays, personified in the delightfully snobbish Augustus Bracknell (Michael Reyes). Underlying the farcical hijinks of mistaken identities and lovers’ quarrels, the theme of found family lends a sweet note to this Pride Month production.

The play opens in the Boystown apartment of Algernon (Jack Seijo), where his friend “Ernest” (Johnard Washington) is visiting in hopes of proposing to Algernon’s cousin and Bracknell’s daughter, Gwendolen (Kade Cox). But first, Algernon demands that Ernest explain why he owns a watch engraved to “Uncle Jack” from “little Cecily.”

Ernest confesses that his real name is Jack, and he leads a double life. In Michigan, Jack is known as the responsible guardian of a late friend’s granddaughter, Cecily (Andi Muriel). Ernest is his fictional younger brother who provides a convenient excuse to escape to the city at any time. As it turns out, Algernon has a similar arrangement. Whenever he wants to get out of an obligation, he leaves the city to visit his fictional friend Bunbury, who always seems to be on the verge of death.

The setup for the farce is as follows: “Ernest” proposes to Gwendolen, who enthusiastically accepts, but Bracknell refuses to approve the match after finding out that he was a foundling abandoned in a tote bag in Ogilvie Station. Meanwhile, Algernon makes his way to Michigan to woo Cecily, a 26-year-old who lives with her life doula, Miss Prism (Lynne Baker), and journals about her vividly imagined romantic life. Algernon introduces himself as Jack’s brother, Ernest, leading to an increasingly absurd tangle of misunderstandings when Jack, Gwendolen and Bracknell later arrive at the lake house.

The language of Brown and Swanson’s adaptation retains much of Wilde’s style and his more famous lines, while sprinkling in modern terms such as guncle, baby gay and daddy (in the Urban Dictionary sense). This is a hyperlocal version, with references to Ainslie Street (“the unfashionable side” of Andersonville, Bracknell shudders) and the gay bar Big Chicks (“What am I, 40?” Algernon protests). The show also sends up the wellness lifestyle through the character of Miss Prism, a bespectacled hippie who reminds Cecily to repeat her daily affirmations while clutching a book by Glennon Doyle.

The cast is still working out the comedic timing in certain moments, and there were a few stumbles over lines at the performance I saw, but this ensemble is already quite funny. Seijo and Muriel have great chemistry as roguish Algernon and flirtatious Cecily. Reyes shines as Bracknell, with an unbending haughty posture and a subtle twitch of the lips to signal disapproval. Crystal Claros and Matt Keeley add to the fun in the respective roles of Dr. Chasuble — Miss Prism’s love interest — and Merriman/Lane, the two butlers.

The original subtitle of “The Importance of Being Earnest” is “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People.” Strawdog’s production is by no means serious, but it’s not entirely trivial, thanks to the recurring theme of the importance of chosen family for LGBTQ people. Jack reminisces warmly about Cecily’s grandfather, who took him under his wing when he first came out and moved to Chicago. The familial theme comes full circle when Jack learns the truth about his past in a last-minute plot twist.

Keeley’s bio calls this “a production that he believes Oscar Wilde would’ve loved to see.” At the risk of projecting onto the past, I’d have to agree. Strawdog has taken some of the most important values of Pride Month — love, acceptance and family — and made them sing through the words of a 19th-century gay playwright. Happy Pride, indeed.

Review: “The Importance of Being Earnest” (3 stars)

When: Through June 30

Where: Rivendell Theatre, 5779 N. Ridge Ave.

Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes

Tickets: Free with advance registration; donations accepted at strawdog.org

Emily McClanathan is a freelance critic.

Set on Chicago’s South Side in 1939, “Native Son” is told from the perspective of Bigger Thomas, a 20-year-old Black man who accidentally kills the daughter of his wealthy white employer and becomes a fugitive from law enforcement and the mob violence of the city’s white population. Wright’s novel intersperses gripping action sequences with long passages that examine the psychological effects of systemic racism. Without excusing Bigger’s deeds, which include a second murder and a sexual assault, Wright makes the case that segregation, poverty and discrimination were key factors in driving him to violence.

Kelley’s adaptation premiered 10 years ago at Court Theatre, not far from where the story takes place, in a co-production with American Blues Theater. It has since played across the country, including off-Broadway. The Lifeline production was my first time seeing the play, and I’ve rarely seen a book-to-stage adaptation work so well.

To stage such an intensely interior novel, Kelley divides the leading role between two actors. At Lifeline, Tamarus Harvell plays Bigger, and James Lewis plays an alter ego of sorts. The double casting reflects the concept of a double consciousness outlined in the play’s opening lines — the idea that every African American has two conflicting senses of self: the one he knows himself to be, and the one that white people see. As Harvell’s Bigger interacts with his white employers, Lewis voices the frustrations that he can’t say aloud. When Bigger goes on the run after killing Mary Dalton (Laura Nelson), Lewis sometimes serves as a conscience, urging restraint, but more often advocates for self-preservation — a desperate struggle that leads to more violence.

The play’s structure is equally innovative, beginning with Mary’s death and telling the story in rapid alternation between flashbacks and the present. Duncan’s direction is impeccably paced and uses every bit of Regina García’s set, which foregrounds a staircase that anyone who has lived in a Chicago apartment will recognize. Branden Marble’s lighting design also helps with the quick transitions between past and present, which often feel more like a cleverly edited film than scene changes in a play.

The fearless leading performances by Harvell and Lewis are matched by the rest of the cast, including Ashli Rene Funches as Bigger’s girlfriend, Bessie; Kamille Dawkins as his mother, Hannah, and Dairyon Bolden as his younger brother, Buddy. The white characters range from the outright racism of private investigator Britten (Gabriel Fries) to the paternalistic liberalism of Mrs. Dalton (Mandy Walsh) and the clumsy attempts at egalitarianism of Mary’s communist boyfriend, Jan (Nick Trengove). Never appearing onstage but mentioned in the play, Mr. Dalton prides himself on donating to the NAACP but gouges his Black tenants who are forced to live in segregated neighborhoods.

The play cuts the character of Boris Max, the white communist lawyer who defends Bigger, and rushes through the trial, a lengthy section of the novel. While the ending feels somewhat abrupt, I’m glad the play wasn’t divided into two acts, which would interrupt the momentum. And Bigger has an impassioned final monologue that efficiently sums up his complex character development in the novel.

Reviving “Native Son” in 2024 naturally invites a conversation with Percival Everett’s 2001 novel “Erasure,” the basis for the 2023 film “American Fiction,” which won the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay. Everett’s protagonist, a highbrow Black writer, pens a vulgar parody of novels like “Native Son” in protest of society’s narrow expectations of Black authors. Long before Everett, James Baldwin’s 1955 essay collection, “Notes of a Native Son,” criticized Wright’s novel for dealing in stereotypes.

Still, “Native Son” remains a seminal work and is well worth revisiting at Lifeline. It’s a snapshot of a certain moment in American history and in African American literature, but its themes are also timely, especially in a city where the effects of segregation and disinvestment are still felt today. As for Kelley’s stellar work as playwright — well, maybe it’s time the Jeff Awards expanded their category for new adaptation.

 Update: This story has been changed to correct information about Jeff Award categories. 

Review: “Native Son” (4 stars)

When: Through June 30

Where: Lifeline Theatre, 6912 N. Glenwood Ave.

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Tickets: $18.00-$48.00 at lifelinetheatre.com or 773-761-4477

According to Mason’s bio, the Black and Filipinx playwright aims to use “the lens of history to disrupt the biases that divide rather than unite us.” Inspired by Mason’s time living in Chicago, “Lavender Men” mines that endless source of mythmaking for Illinoisans: Honest Abe. The narrator, Taffeta (Julian “joolz” Stroop) — described in the play’s synopsis as a “fat, multi-racial femme” — conjures the ghosts of Lincoln (Matt Martin) and Elmer Ellsworth (Shea Petersen) to spin a tale of love, loss and self-acceptance. Initially reluctant to relive their tragic past, the two men are enticed by Taffeta’s invitation to change their story.

Directed by Lucky Stiff in its Midwest premiere, “Lavender Men” is as much Taffeta’s tale as that of Abe and Elmer. Taffeta not only plays the other characters but inserts herself into the narrative to muse on the erasure of people of color and LGBTQ+ people throughout history. While playing Sadie, the Black woman who cleans Lincoln’s law office, she confronts the soon-to-be Great Emancipator about his problematic views of African Americans. In other scenes, Taffeta fuses her portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln with her own experiences of disordered eating.

Narratively, the connections between past and present often feel stretched. The most effective parts of Taffeta’s story show her journey toward self-love in the present. In the opening scene, she recites a litany of fatphobic, misogynistic and racist language that has been hurled her way by anyone from one-night stands to passersby on the street. Dee Etti-Williams’ sound design intermittently transforms these lines into a warped refrain of voices in Taffeta’s head, demonstrating the harmful internalization of such abuse.

But what does this have to do with an antebellum gay romance? The answer to that question was hazy for me. Taffeta’s openly revisionist history has Lincoln falling in love with Ellsworth, a historical figure who served in the U.S. Army, trained with Lincoln as a law clerk, assisted in his presidential campaign and became the first Union officer to die in the Civil War when he was shot while attempting to remove a Confederate flag from a hotel in Alexandria, Virginia.

Martin and Petersen have strong chemistry as Abe and Elmer. The combined efforts of Etti-Williams, choreographer Jacinda Ratcliffe and lighting designer Ben Carne give their love story a whimsical quality. Bathed in dreamy purple light, the two men first lock eyes to Leonard Bernstein’s music from Tony and Maria’s first meeting in “West Side Story.” Courtney Abbott’s intimacy choreography also stands out as their relationship heats up.

The lovers’ journey somewhat parallels Taffeta’s; when Elmer bemoans his small stature and its limitations on his military aspirations, Abe responds that insults about his appearance are only true if you believe them. The theme of self-acceptance ties together the past and present as the play explores the question: What if we could reject the stories that others tell about us and change the stories we tell ourselves?

This line of thought should be affirming for many audience members, and not only for those who share elements of Taffeta’s identity. Unfortunately, the narrative threads of the play’s two storylines don’t hold together. Taffeta eventually realizes the limitations of looking to two dead white guys to reexamine her own place in history, but why does she summon Abe and Elmer in the first place? I’m still not sure. So, although “Lavender Men” has romance, humor and a fierce narrator, it’s ultimately rather baffling.

Emily McClanathan is a freelance critic.

Review: “Lavender Men” (2 stars)

When: Through June 8

Where: The Den Theatre, 1331 N Milwaukee Ave

Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes

Tickets: Pay what you can ($5-$35) at 773-697-3830 and AboutFaceTheatre.com

Hell in a Handbag Productions taps into this rich comedic vein with its world premiere production of “Poor People! The Parody Musical” by Tyler Anthony Smith. Directed by Stephanie Shaw, with music direction by Andrew Milliken and choreography by Christopher Kelley, this bawdy romp is a hilarious send-up of popular musicals populated by orphaned New Yorkers, Cockney street vendors and Parisian sex workers.

Dakota Hughes stars as Li’l Orphan Arnie, a red-headed kid with a fondness for show tunes and a dream that their parents will return someday with the missing piece of the broken Liza Minnelli record they wear around their neck. When they escape the orphanage/meth lab run by the chain-smoking Miss A (Sydney Genco), Arnie discovers a portal that takes them from 1979 New York to 1815 Paris.

Arnie isn’t the only one who has traveled through the portal. Nineteenth century Paris seems to be the hub that draws unfortunate souls from across time and space, with the through-line being that they all prefer to process their trauma through belting ballads. In the city’s seedy underworld, Arnie and their feline companion, Fosse Kitty (Matty Bettencourt), meet kind-hearted prostitute Nance (Smith), flamboyant pimp Fagin (David Cerda), forlorn Epipen (Taylor Dalton), sickly Pantene (Caitlin Jackson), chipper young Twinky (Patrick O’Keefe), Pretty Rich Boy (Tommy Thurston) and a nameless beggar woman with a taste for squirrel meat (Elizabeth Lesinski).

And because one villain isn’t enough, the time-bending storyline introduces the Groomer of the Flop’ra (Shane Roberie), Nance’s longtime stalker; and Mama Moneybags (Brittney Brown), a GOP politician who travels back in time from 2024 to stamp out the plague of prostitution.

This motley company rattles off irreverent parodies of some two dozen songs from “Annie,” “Cats,” “Les Misérables,” “Mary Poppins,” “My Fair Lady,” “Oliver!” and more. Smith’s writing is highly self-aware, with meta comments on musical theater tropes and inside jokes about dramaturgy, the Jeff Awards and Actors’ Equity. It would be misleading to say that the book and lyrics are full of sexual innuendoes because more often than not, they say the quiet part out loud. There’s also profanity, shots at antivaxxers and an, um, explicit interpretation of Jesus Christ’s final hours. So, maybe leave the kids at home.

One of the strengths of this production is the way it leans into the limitations of storefront theater and makes it all part of the joke. Characters poke fun at the low-budget set (designed by G. “Max” Maxin IV), and the turntable and projections intentionally malfunction. Rachel M. Sypniewski’s costumes and Maggie O’Brien’s props add to the zany humor. I won’t soon forget the chorus of crazed squirrel corpses that accompanies the beggar woman’s rendition of “Feed the Birds.”

The homespun feel also comes through in the music. Smith’s lyrics often don’t map smoothly onto the existing tunes, but this seems to be a running gag. The plodding lyrics from the opening number of “Les Mis” (“Look down”) transform into a clunky refrain of “or-phans” when we meet Arnie and crew in Miss A’s orphanage. Also, several actors’ vocal ranges don’t really fit their characters’ songs, but this becomes the perfect setup for Arnie — too quiet in the “Annie” parodies — to later bring down the house with Christine Daaé’s famous high notes.

The first act gets a bit long, with several false endings, but it’s worth the wait to see the company wave tiny French flags during a parody of “One Day More” before the chandelier falls to signal the start of intermission. The plot gets even wilder in Act 2, but as Arnie says with a shrug, “What’s some more trauma?”

Musical theater devotees with a slightly sick sense of humor will find “Poor People!” a riot. But don’t bring your friend who thinks “The Phantom of the Opera” is actually an opera. They’ll probably be more lost than Li’l Orphan Arnie in the red light district of Paris.

Review: “Poor People! The Parody Musical” (3.5 stars)

When: Through June 16

Where: The Chopin Studio Theatre, 1543 W. Division St.

Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes

Tickets: $42-$60 at www.handbagproductions.org

Ken-Matt Martin, the former artistic director of Victory Gardens Theater, directs this production by Congo Square Theatre, presented at Broadway in Chicago’s Broadway Playhouse and produced in association with the Goodman Theatre. Before the performance begins, the play’s lengthy full title is projected on the set: “How I Learned What I Learned: And How What I Learned Has Led Me to Places I’ve Wanted to Go. That I Have Sometimes Gone Unwillingly Is the Crucible in Which Many a Work of Art Has Been Fired.”

As the title suggests, the play explores elements of Wilson’s life that informed his writing — primarily his experiences living in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, where he sets most of the plays in his Century Cycle. “How I Learned” allows Wilson to offer his perspective, unfiltered through the dialogue of fictional characters, on what it means to be a Black American in the second half of the 20th century. Although full of vignettes that range from bitingly funny to deeply insightful, the play doesn’t convey a cohesive sense of Wilson’s development as an artist. Without a certain level of prior knowledge, the overall trajectory of his biography would still be hazy after seeing this show.

Nevertheless, the velvet-voiced Lennix excels in the play’s storytelling style. Casually moving around a homey set designed by Sydney Lynne Thomas, Lennix fosters a conversational rapport with the audience while maintaining the sharp wit and self-described rascally temper of his character. What makes this one-man performance even more impressive is the fact that the two-week run of “How I Learned” comes in the middle of Lennix’s demanding role as the patriarch in Steppenwolf Theatre’s “Purpose.” Lennix will rejoin the cast of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ fiery new family drama just two days after his Congo Square engagement ends.

In “How I Learned,” Wilson describes his native Hill District, mostly populated by African Americans and European immigrants, as “an amalgam of the unwanted,” with socioeconomic statistics on par with those of developing countries. Raised by his Black mother, the biracial Wilson recalls having bricks inscribed with racist slurs thrown through the window of the family home when they moved to a predominantly white neighborhood.

Although the play recounts many instances of racism, Wilson also shares how his mother taught him to stand up for himself and never settle for less than he deserves. “Something is not always better than nothing,” she tells her son when a radio station tries to shortchange her after she wins a contest for a new washing machine. Rather than accept a voucher to buy a secondhand machine, she saves her spare change for more than a year to buy the new model she had been promised before the contest organizers learned she was Black.

We also learn a bit about Wilson’s education, which was largely self-guided as he devoured library books after dropping out of school at 15. Recalling his early forays into poetry, he mischievously admits to splitting his poems into twice the number of lines before submitting them to a magazine that paid by the line. In the final scene, Rasean Davonté Johnson’s projections scroll through the 10 play titles of Wilson’s Century Cycle, but we don’t see how he gets to that point in his career. I wish the play delved more deeply into his beginnings and growth as a writer.

Although it’s not everything I’d hope for in an autobiographical play, “How I Learned” provides fascinating glimpses into the life of a beloved American playwright. His nuanced reflections on race hearken back to earlier generations of trailblazing Black American writers while still speaking to the present. And one final note: the short run of “How I Learned” coincides with the Goodman Theatre’s current revival of Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” so for those who want to be immersed in Wilson’s world, it’s a good time to be in Chicago.

Review: “How I Learned What I Learned” (2.5 stars)

When: Through May 5

Where: Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, 175 E. Chestnut St.

Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes

Tickets: $45-$65 at broadwayinchicago.com

But that day, a team-building activity posed the question, “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?” Immediately, Stellato-Dudek responded, “I would win the Olympic gold medal.”

“I remember on my way home that night, I thought, ‘I can’t believe I said that. I wonder if there’s something more to that,’” she told the Tribune.

Indeed, there was more to it — much more.

After 16 years off the ice, Stellato-Dudek returned to the sport in the 2016-17 season, switching disciplines from women’s singles to pair skating and partnering with fellow American Nathan Bartholomay. They amicably parted ways after three seasons when Bartholomay got injured, and in 2019, Stellato-Dudek teamed up with her current partner, Canadian skater Maxime Deschamps. Representing Canada, she and Deschamps won the gold medal at the International Skating Union’s World Figure Skating Championships in March 2024, making 40-year-old Stellato-Dudek the oldest woman to win a world title in figure skating.

Stellato-Dudek grew up in Glenview and began figure skating at the local rink where her older brother played hockey. “We spent a lot of time as a family in the ice rink,” she said. “I only really have fond memories of it.”

As a teenager, she represented the United States in international competitions, taking gold at the 1999 Junior Grand Prix Final and silver at the 2000 World Junior Figure Skating Championships. When a hip injury derailed her plans to train for the 2002 Olympic trials, she decided to retire at age 17.

Stellato-Dudek built a career as an aesthetician and lived in Chicago for a decade. She enjoyed city life, but when her figure skating dreams were rekindled, she retrieved her boots and blades from her mother’s basement and formulated a plan.

“I started to skate again whenever I could. I would get up at 4 in the morning and try to be on the ice at 5 a.m. before I had to go in to work,” she said. “My goal was that every day, for three months, I had to do something toward my dream, and I had to metaphorically build a chain-link fence. If I did something toward my dream every day, I could add a link to the fence, and my goal was to never break the chain.”

After those three months, she rewarded herself with a trip to Florida to see Cindy Watson Caprel, her childhood coach. During that visit, she happened to encounter Mitch Moyer, then a senior director with U.S. Figure Skating. At his suggestion, she participated in a tryout for pair skating. “I fell in love with pairs, and the rest is history,” she said.

In her partnership with Bartholomay, Stellato-Dudek won consecutive bronze medals at the 2018 and 2019 U.S. Championships, but then she had to find a new partner due to his injury.

“In figure skating, it’s really common when you get to a certain level and you’re in the partner sport, that most of the time there’s one person who actually was not born in the country that they’re representing,” she said. “There are so few of us at a certain level, and there has to be a good match visually, there has to be a good match in a skill set, you have to have similar torso sizes, similar leg sizes, similar body makeup.”

“And so, it’s difficult to find a partner that matches you properly,” Stellato-Dudek continued. “At the time in America, there was literally nobody. Everybody was already taken, and I knew I wanted to continue. So that was when I moved across the border to Canada to start my second journey here in pairs skating.”

Deschamps recalls feeling an instant connection with Stellato-Dudek during their initial tryout in 2019. “I feel free skating with her,” he said. Deschamps also praised her “perseverance, determination and work ethic. She comes into the rink every day as if it’s an Olympic day, so she has that fire, and that’s what makes a huge difference.”

That grit would be necessary to continue training through the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic when they had to improvise by skating outdoors in the winter and practicing lifts off the ice. Their hard work soon yielded impressive results, including back-to-back Canadian championships in 2023 and 2024, a gold medal at the 2024 ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships and five medals — including three golds — from the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating series of international competitions.

But their crowning achievement thus far happened on home ice in March when they won the 2024 ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Deschamps’ native Montreal. Coming into the competition with the momentum of a strong season, Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps achieved a personal best score and were in first place after the short program — the first of two programs required in figure skating competitions. However, their gold medal seemed in jeopardy when Stellato-Dudek was fighting illness and had a rough warmup before their longer program.

That’s when she drew on her Chicago roots and channeled one of her longtime sports heroes. “Growing up in Chicago in the ’90s, I have very special memories of my mom and dad letting my brother and I stay up late to watch the Chicago Bulls when they were in all of their championships,” she said. “Michael Jordan has been a huge source of inspiration for me.”

Knowing this, her coaches said to Stellato-Dudek, “Do you remember when Michael Jordan won the (1997) championship game with a fever? You’re going to need to be like Mike right now.”

“It really turned my head around to be like, ‘OK, this is my moment to be like him,’” she said. Skating to a song from the “Interview with the Vampire” score — with Stellato-Dudek playing the part of the vampire to thrilling effect — the pair won their first world championship.

Without any downtime to celebrate, Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps traveled from Montreal to Japan to perform in the Stars on Ice tour, and they are already preparing for the 2024-25 season. Stellato-Dudek is seeking Canadian citizenship so the pair can compete in the 2026 Olympics, and their four-year training plan is well underway.

Reflecting on her historic world title, Stellato-Dudek sees her age as an advantage.

“I gave myself permission to have this second chance at something that not everybody does. Once I decided that I was going to do this, I said I was going to do it with reckless abandon and put my foot all the way down on the pedal.”

In a sport often dominated by younger athletes, the experience that comes with age is another benefit. “Figure skating is such a unique sport in that we have all of this athleticism and these amazing jumps and spins, but then we have this artistic side that allows us to tell a story,” Stellato-Dudek said. “I feel like, as an adult, it’s so much easier to draw on my actual life experiences to try to portray these things properly. That is, I think, a positive part about hopefully seeing some athletes stay in the game longer and continue on longer.”

“If I could inspire another skater to stay in just as long as me and break my record and win a world championship at 41, that would be my ultimate dream.”

Emily McClanathan is a freelance reporter for the Chicago Tribune.

Nostalgic parents and young theatergoers alike will find plenty to smile about in the spring production at Chicago Children’s Theatre, “A Year with Frog and Toad.” Michelle Lopez-Rios directs this musical adaptation of Lobel’s 1970s book series, which was nominated for three Tony Awards when it ran on Broadway in 2003. The sweet, whimsical show was the debut production for Chicago Children’s Theatre in 2006, and the company is now producing it for the fourth time.

Eduardo Curley-Carrillo and Nick Druzbanski make a delightful duo as Frog and Toad, who are nearing the end of their winter hibernation and dreaming about each other when the show begins. After a chorus of birds (Diego Vazquez Gomez, Laura Murillo Hart and Leslie Ann Sheppard) heralds the arrival of spring, Frog wakes and immediately goes to visit his friend. Here, we first see the difference between the two: Frog is chipper and optimistic, while Toad is fretful and prone to melancholy — not to mention a grumpy riser. Nevertheless, either would do anything for the other.

As the title suggests, the musical cycles through four seasons of the friends’ adventures. Well, adventures might be too strong a word; the wildest activities they get up to are sledding down a steep hill (Frog’s idea, of course) and telling scary stories on a dark and stormy night (again, Frog). In another vignette, they secretly rake each other’s lawns, but mischievous squirrels (Murillo Hart and Sheppard) ruin the surprise by scattering the leaves again. Frog also tries to surprise Toad with a letter after learning that his friend never receives any mail, but he naively entrusts the delivery to a snail. This becomes a running joke — and an adorable performance by Vazquez Gomez — as the slow but determined snail treks through spring, summer, fall and winter to finish the job.

This production has a brighter, more colorful look than the muted earth tones of Lobel’s original illustrations. Costume designer Rachel Healy dresses the anthropomorphic characters in human clothes that evoke their animal forms. For example, the turtle (Murillo Hart) wears a plaid skirt, striped shirt, green beret and shell-shaped backpack. Frog sports the loudest costume, with a neon green puffer vest, green striped pants and bright orange socks and sneakers. To visually highlight the friends’ contrasting personalities, Toad is given a more homespun style, with hunter green overalls, a plaid shirt and the occasional cardigan.

Lopez-Rios stages this production in the round, and Courtney O’Neill’s set design situates Frog and Toad’s houses at opposite ends of an open space anchored by a large toadstool. Sightlines tend to be difficult — likely more so for the smallest viewers — during the scenes that are set off to one side. But there’s no bad seat in the house for the center-stage scenes, which are enhanced by Lonnae Hickman’s imaginative props. When Frog and Toad go swimming in the pond, they each dive into a Hula-Hoop-like contraption with sequined blue fabric hanging down from it, allowing them to independently “swim” around the stage.

Music director and sound designer Christie Chiles Twillie leads the accompaniment from the keyboard, with cast members joining on percussion, guitar, banjo and kazoos. Though simply orchestrated, Robert Reale’s jaunty tunes and Willie Reale’s upbeat lyrics set the tone for Micah Figueroa’s playful choreography.

Good stories about friendship never go out of style, and what makes Frog and Toad so special is the way they see the best in each other, warts and all. Toad’s tendency to catastrophize is met with patience and compassion by Frog, who never makes his anxious friend feel like a burden but emphasizes how much he brings to their relationship. May we all find such friends.

Emily McClanathan is a freelance critic.

Review: “A Year with Frog and Toad” (3.5 stars)

When: Through June 9

Where: Chicago Children’s Theatre, 100 S. Racine Ave.

Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Tickets: $45-$55 ($12 lap seat tickets for children 18 months and under) at chicagochildrenstheatre.org or 312-374-8835

When we meet Erica (J.G. Smith), she is working at a grocery store in her small Massachusetts hometown and living with her older sister, a local politician named Trish (Jodi Gage). While navigating grief over her mother’s recent death, Erica is also coming to terms with her sexuality, which she’s been aware of since adolescence but doesn’t yet have the language to describe. She’s objectum sexual: a real type of orientation characterized by emotional, romantic or sexual attraction to inanimate objects.

Directed by Jeremy Wechsler, “Inanimate” brings Erica’s world to life through a chorus of actors playing personified objects (Khloe Janel, Erin Long and Dustin Valenta), including a teddy bear, a lamp and a can opener. Although she claims to know that they aren’t literally speaking to her, Erica senses — and Robideau scripts — dialogue from the objects to which she responds in two-way conversations. Not every object is a romantic interest; some are comforting confidants or snarky sidekicks. But when she gets caught in an intimate moment at work, she loses her job and becomes the target of vicious small-town gossip.

Feeling ostracized, Erica finds solace in her newfound love, the glowing red sign at her local Dairy Queen — or Dee, as she calls him — played by Aaron Latterell. Costume designer Mara Blumenfeld dresses all the personified objects in clothes that nod to their inanimate forms. Dee’s all-black outfit is topped with a jacket made of transparent red plastic and warmly illuminated by lighting designer Levi Wilkins. With a sculpted jawline, smoldering gaze and impeccable posture, Latterell embodies the stoic, dependable — and, yes, sexy — man that Erica sees in Dee.

If this sounds like a wild ride, you’re not wrong. “Inanimate” is the first piece of theater, or any other art form, I’ve encountered that addresses objectum sexuality. In a meta comment, Erica bemoans the lack of representation in pop culture. It’s one reason why she knows so little about her own orientation; the first time she Googled it, she was scared off by headlines about weird fetishes. Robideau’s script balances playful humor — which always has the audience laughing with, never at, Erica — with a compassionate take on a misunderstood phenomenon. In a study published after “Inanimate” premiered, objectum sexuality was linked to autism and synesthesia, but Robideau is careful not to pathologize Erica. Rather, he invites open-minded viewers to understand someone who experiences the world differently.

Luckily for Erica, she finds an empathetic companion in Kevin, a former high school classmate who has been serving her Blizzards on her daily visits to Dairy Queen. William Anthony Sebastian Rose II gives a charming, funny performance as the nerdy friend who has been nursing a crush on Erica for years. After some awkward romantic miscues, she opens up to him about her sexuality. Having navigated his own coming out as bi- or pansexual (he refuses labels), Kevin helps Erica learn about her orientation and connect with an online community of similar people. It makes all the difference for Erica to find others who are like her and a friend who accepts her authentic self. There’s much to relate to here for anyone who’s ever had to hide a part of themselves, whether related to sexuality or not.

Erica and Kevin’s relationship is so well developed that it leaves little room for other storylines, such as Erica’s relationship with Trish. A provincial caricature who’s more concerned with her political prospects than with helping her sister, Trish mainly serves as a one-dimensional foil to Kevin’s kindness.

Still, “Inanimate” is a warmhearted, expansive story about living authentically and accepting others for who they are. Although its climactic scene stretched my suspension of disbelief, there was never a dull moment thanks to Robideau’s clever dialogue, a cast that fully commits to the play’s eccentricities and the important truths at its core.

Review: “Inanimate” (3 stars)

When: Through May 4

Where: Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave.

Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes

Tickets: $18-$55 at 773-975-8150 and theaterwit.org

Directed by Keira Fromm, the play opens with a series of vignettes set in a Lexington, Kentucky, café in 2016. Claire Kaplan gives a radiant performance as Lane, an outgoing, smiley barista with an offbeat sense of humor. When a bookish new customer, Steph (Jojo Brown), catches her eye, Lane initiates a sweet flirtation that leads to deeper discussions of literature, politics and religion.

As romance blossoms between the two women, secrets emerge that threaten their budding relationship. Lane reveals a fact that she thought Steph already knew: The café where she works is affiliated with an opioid recovery center and solely employs its patients. Lane is in recovery from heroin addiction. Instead of the rejection that Lane fears, Steph responds by telling Lane about her strained relationship with her teenage daughter, who was born when Steph was in high school. “We’re all recovering constantly from something,” Steph says, full of empathy.

Weaving elements of the playwright’s own journey with chronic pain into Lane’s fictional story, Nanako Winkler humanizes the experience of addiction and shows how it can happen to anyone. Lane rattles off an exhaustive list of medical and holistic therapies she tried for her chronic condition before succumbing to the only thing that eased her pain: heroin. Not only was the heroin more affordable and more effective, but the first dose was given to her for free. That’s all it took, she says, chillingly.

Lane also explains that she continued to function well — better, even — throughout her daily activities while high. That was the problem; soon, she needed the heroin to function at all.

After we learn Lane’s backstory, we see her relationship with Steph progress in scenes that move quickly through the next three years. We also meet Lane’s older sister, Della (Cyd Blakewell), who has been her primary support through her years of addiction, and the siblings welcome Steph into their small but close-knit family.

It took a while for me to feel the chemistry between Lane and Steph in the first half of the play; the structure of fast-paced vignettes sometimes comes at the cost of character development. However, a later series of Christmas scenes goes beyond the couple’s quirky rapport to explore the complexities of loving each other through Lane’s disease and Steph’s family baggage.

Interludes of stylized movement, choreographed by Jenn Freeman, are interspersed with the more traditionally staged scenes. I’m not sure I fully understood what each of these interludes was meant to communicate, beyond illustrating a character’s internal struggles. Still, the work of the creative team shines in these moments, with lighting designer Conchita Avitia employing beautiful globe lights in various colors and Christopher Kriz’s score setting the appropriate emotional tones.

“The Brightest Thing in the World” is the most sensitive, life-affirming story about the opioid epidemic that I’ve come across since Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2022 novel, “Demon Copperhead.” While Kingsolver’s characters are mostly from rural Appalachia, Nanako Winkler’s play is likely to be more relatable for urban theatergoers, with Lane holding a degree in creative writing, living in a midsize city and espousing liberal politics.

Nanako Winkler’s play includes some tragic scenes, but she is largely successful in her effort to focus on the light that Lane brings to those who love her. The most memorable scene is not one of sadness but a spontaneous dance party at one of Lane, Steph and Della’s Christmas gatherings. As the others fade from view, Lane dances alone while the lighting shifts to a strobe effect, twirling with abandon and lifting her face to the light. At that moment, she is, indeed, the brightest thing in the world.

Emily McClanathan is a freelance critic.

Review: “The Brightest Thing in the World” (3 stars)

When: Through April 13

Where: The Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave.

Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes

Tickets: Pay-what-you-can tickets ($5-$35) at 773-697-3830 and AboutFaceTheatre.com

Likely the most noticeable change for those with a passing familiarity, Price and FastHorse set the opening scenes in modern-day America rather than Edwardian London. When the curtain comes up on the Darling home, Wendy (Hawa Kamara) and her reluctant brother John (William Foon on opening night) are filming a dance for a social media challenge. Before Mr. and Mrs. Darling (Cody Garcia and Shefali Deshpande) leave the two with their youngest brother, Michael (Reed Epley on opening night), they wonder how concerned to be that their sitter (Hannah Schmidt) spends her working hours texting and watching videos on her phone.

In my view, the modern setting could have been established without the too-cute references to social media, but hey, that’s just the opinion of one millennial. What works better in the opening scenes is Wendy’s transformation into an aspiring surgeon. Anatomical drawings hang above her bed, and she offers to darn her father’s sleeve with her suturing kit — a skill that comes in handy when a strange boy later appears in the children’s bedroom, crying because his shadow won’t stick to him.

Many previous productions have cast an adult woman in the title role, beginning with Mary Martin in the original Broadway company. But this tour entrusts the part to 16-year-old Nolan Almeida, a dynamic performer with a strong, youthful voice and unruly curls framing his mischievous face. I actually would have guessed that Almeida is a little older, given his confident stage presence. He deftly balances Peter’s boyish enthusiasm with the character’s melancholy side as the perpetually lost boy.

With the help of slick projections by David Bengali, the four children soar to Neverland in flying sequences choreographed by Paul Rubin. There, the Darlings meet Peter’s band of Lost Boys and a tribe led by Tiger Lily (Raye Zaragoza). In the original musical, Tiger Lily and company were portrayed as stereotypes of Native Americans, complete with a cringeworthy song that caricatures their language as gibberish. This song is replaced, but even better, FastHorse gives the tribe a backstory to explain how they ended up on this magical island.

In her telling, each tribe member is the last of their people, and they have taken refuge on the island in hopes of preserving their cultures and someday returning home. Thus, the costumes, designed by Sarafina Bush, reflect a variety of cultures. Their relationship to the island, eloquently articulated by Tiger Lily, reminds me of Shakespeare scholar and playwright Madeline Sayet’s anti-colonialist reading of “The Tempest” in her solo play, “Where We Belong.” It’s moving to see Indigenous artists reinterpret classics with obvious care both for the beloved originals and for those who have been harmed or excluded by them.

Tiger Lily and Wendy advocate for equal leadership roles with Peter and fight alongside him against the pirates (led by Garcia’s delightfully campy, Scottish-accented Captain Hook). Wendy also sings one of the show’s most poignant songs, “Distant Melody,” which was given to Peter in the original. She retains her role as make-believe mother to the Lost Boys, telling them the bedtime stories that first drew Peter to the Darlings’ window. The power of storytelling comes through beautifully here.

This version loses some of Barrie’s darker edges, dropping Peter’s famous line, “To die will be an awfully big adventure,” and its counterpart, “To live would be an awfully big adventure.” I have mixed feelings about this. I certainly understand the case for removing any potential glorification of death. But as a preteen who was obsessed with the “Peter Pan” musical, novel and 2003 live-action film, I found a lot of meaning in the painful tension between the costs of growing up and what Peter loses when he refuses.

So, while this new production perhaps skews a little younger than moody 12-year-olds, it’s a wholesome, joyful introduction to a classic story. As for this grown-up, I’m quite happy to have the lovely melodies of Morris Charlap and Jule Styne running through my head after revisiting a childhood favorite.

Emily McClanathan is a freelance critic.

Review: “Peter Pan” (3.5 stars)

When: Through April 7

Where: Nederlander Theatre, 24 W. Randolph St.

Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes

Tickets: $50-$135 at www.broadwayinchicago.com