The Band’s Visit is a musical that finds more music in its silences than most others can find in their whole songbooks. Also, like a mirage, it will vanish from Chicago in time, so get in line.

The songs, almost all fast-paced and brief, keep the audience engaged as they watch the actors work their magic in the Marriott’s famous theater in the round. 

She's perfect for the part, dulcetly crooning its signature "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" in a rendition worthy of any cabaret in any major city around the world.

This is a tale of tenderness, and the six actors each embody two men alternatively separated across four decades with a lived-in familiarity and well-forged chemistry. And when they all sing together (under the heartfelt musical guidance of Manning), it’s all the more magical.

Poignant and inventive, "Darling Grenadine" dazzles with its ingenuity, its heart and its candor.

As Hedwig, Will Lidke is a lissome time bomb. Aided and abetted by Robert S. Kuhn (costumes), Keith Ryan (wigs), and, naturallement, Jeremy Ramey (music direction), he can win you over one minute with an anthem as bopping and empowering as “Wig in a Box.”

This gag-a-second, mile-a-minute romp just goes to show that sometimes, the oldest jokes in the book are still in the book for a reason.

This H2$ si unapologetic, for sure, and that’s just how Music Theater Works artistic director Rudy Hogenmiller likes it and directs it, a gleeful sound in a season-long parting shot before he resigns.

Take Me has the potential to be a fun-house mirror held up to humanity’s (in)ability to cope with tragedy and misfortune. We can stay on board for this. That is until we encounter, among other things, living toys, sequined galaxy-hopping country music stars and a city council made up of ex-Soviet dogs.