Theater events: Say the magic word

Actor/writer Frank Ferrante re-creates the wit and wisdom of Groucho Marx onstage at Aurora's Paramount Theatre for one night only. Written by Marx's son Arthur Marx, “An Evening with Groucho” consists of the anecdotes, one-liners and songs the elder Marx made famous. 7 p.m. Friday, April 20, 20 E. Galena Blvd., Aurora. $25-$35. (630) 896-6666 or paramount aurora.com.

All-star ‘Iceman'

Goodman Theatre artistic director Robert Falls helms one of the most anticipated productions this season, a revival of Eugene O'Neill's “The Iceman Cometh” featuring Broadway's Nathan Lane as Hickey Hickman and co-starring Brian Dennehy and Stratford Shakespeare Festival standout Stephen Ouimette, along with a host of Chicago's finest character actors. The play centers on the down-and-out regulars at a seedy bar who wax poetic about their glory days and insist they will return to their former lives, that is until Hickey disabuses them of their pipe dreams. Previews begin at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 21, at 170 N. Dearborn St., Chicago. The show opens May 3. $61-$133. (312) 443-3800 or goodmantheatre.org.

A ‘Timon' for today

Chicago Shakespeare Theater artistic director Barbara Gaines directs “Timon of Athens,” the final production of CST's 25th anniversary season. Tony Award winner Ian McDiarmid stars as Timon, a wealthy and successful futures trader whose friends abandon him when his fortunes take a downturn. CST veterans Kevin Gudahl, Bruce A. Young, Timothy Edward Kane and Sean Fortunato also appear in this production. Previews begin Tuesday, April 24, at Navy Pier, 800 E. Grand Ave., Chicago. The show opens May 2. $44-$75. (312) 595-5600 or chicagoshakes.com.

What's new in theater

• The Elgin Cultural Arts Commission presents a free, staged reading of “Telling Lives,” by Faye Sholiton, as part of its Page to Stage series, at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, April 20 and 21, and at 1 p.m. Sunday, April 22, at the Elgin Art Showcase, 164 Division St., 8th floor, Elgin. Inspired by the writer's family, the play deals with family members confronting memories and memory loss. See cityofelgin.org.

• Lifeline Theatre, 6912 N. Glenwood Ave., Chicago, concludes its 29th season with ensemble member Christina Calvit's adaptation of Jane Austen's 19th century novel “Pride and Prejudice,” about bright, independent Lizzie Bennett who meets her match in the equally headstrong and very wealthy Mr. Darcy. Previews begin Friday, April 20. The show opens Monday, April 30. (773) 761-4477 or lifelinetheatre.com.

• Siblings who attend Babes With Blades' production of “Trash” from Friday, April 20, through Sunday, April 22 will receive two-for-one tickets. “Trash” is about sisters digging through the detritus of their late mother's life in search of a letter. Performances run through Saturday, May 5, at The Side Project Theatre, 1439 W. Jarvis Ave., Chicago. Also on April 20, Babes With Blades presents “Trash” playwright Arthur M. Jolly with the company's Margaret Martin Award for its Joining Sword and Pen Playwriting Competition. The award is accompanied by a $1,000 stipend. The play is also a semifinalist for the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwrights Conference. (773) 904-0391 or babeswithblades.org.

• Factory Theater inaugurates its 20th season with a revival of its popular comedy, “White Trash Wedding and a Funeral,” about how family disputes upend one couple's nuptials. Previews begin Friday, April 20, at Prop Theater, 3502 N. Elston Ave., Chicago. The show opens Friday, April 27. (866) 811-4111 or thefactorytheater.com.

• James Anthony Zoccoli brings his one-man show “Wiggerlover (white boy + black dad = gray areas),” about growing up in an interracial family in Chicago, to Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark St., Chicago, as part of the theater's Evermore Series showcasing emerging artists. Zoccoli performs the show Friday, April 20, through Saturday, May 5. See raventheatre.com or jamesanthonyzoccoli.com.

• The Brown Paper Box Co. presents a staged reading of its 2010 spoof, “Reefer Madness! The Musical,” based on the 1936 film about the perils of marijuana, at 11:30 p.m. Friday, April 20, at Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago. See brownpaperbox.org for more information.

• Performances begin Saturday, April, 21, for The Mammals Theater Company production of “All Girl Moby Dick.” Adapted from Herman Melville's novel by Bob Fisher and Sara Gorsky, it centers around a mad sea captain's search for the elusive white whale who years earlier tore off the captain's leg. Performances run through Saturday, May 26, at Zoo Studios, 4001 N. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago. (866) 593-4614 or themammals.blogspot.com.

• Barrel of Monkeys hosts its Fancy Schmancy Benefit 2012: A Big Prom, from 7 to 11 p.m. Saturday, April 21, at the Drucker Center, 1535 N. Dayton St., Chicago. The event features a 1980s cover band The Breakfast Club. Proceeds benefit BOM programming with Chicago Public Schools. (312) 409-1954 or barrelofmonkeys.org.

• Porchlight Music Theatre hosts its annual benefit The Icons Gala, Celebrating the Art of Michael Bennett, from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Sunday, April 22, at The University Club of Chicago, 76 E. Monroe St., Chicago. The brunch includes entertainment by Summer Smart, Gene Weygandt and Adrian Aguilar, a live and silent auction, and the presentation of the 2012 Guy Adkins Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Music Theatre in Chicago to actress Hollis Resnik. The Icons Gala is an annual event paying tribute to a person who has impacted American musical theater. (773) 777-9884 or porchlightmusictheatre.org.

• Midwest New Musicals and Light Opera Works team up for another concert reading of an in-progress musical at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 23, at LOW's second stage at 1420 Maple St., Evanston. The featured musical is “My Dead Irish Mother” in which writer/lyricist Pat Byrnes and composer Rich Prezioso examine an Irish son's relationship with his deceased mom. (847) 920-5360.

• Tony Award winning directors Anna D. Shapiro and Frank Galati discuss their craft at 4:30 p.m. Monday, April 23, in Northwestern University's Annie May Swift Hall, 1920 Campus Drive, Evanston. The panel is sponsored by the Sarah Siddons Society. (847) 446-4140.

• Theater Wit presents the Midwest premiere of Kim Rosenstock's “Tigers Be Still,” beginning Tuesday, April 24, at 1229 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago. The dark comedy is about a woman who recently graduated with her master's degree in art therapy, who gets hired as a high school art teacher just as everyone around her begins to unravel. Artistic director Jeremy Wechsler directs the show which opens Tuesday, May 1. (773) 975-8150 or theaterwit.org.

• Drury Lane Theatre for Young Adults presents “The Wizard of Oz,” beginning Wednesday, April 25, at 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace. Rachel Rockwell directs the show which features special breakfast buffets with the characters. (630) 530-0111 or drurylaneoakbrook.com.

• New Leaf Theatre concludes its 2011 Treehouse Readings Series showcasing in-development plays at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 25, at the Lincoln Park Cultural Center, 2045 N. Lincoln Park West, Chicago. The play is David Strattan White's “Still Life of a Moving Picture” about a man who returns after 15 years to visit his father who is suffering from dementia and living in an abandoned drive-in movie theater. See newleaftheatre.org.

• Hell in a Handbag Productions presents the world premiere of David Cerda and Scott Lamberty's musical sendup of child beauty pageants, “Sexy Baby,” about the pint-size princesses and the overbearing mothers who live vicariously through them. Previews begin Thursday, April 26, at Mary's Attic, 5400 N. Clark St., Chicago. The show opens Saturday, May 5. (800) 838-3006 or handbagproductions.org.

• “Maggie and Coco Save the World,” a stage sitcom sendup of Occupy-style activism, runs Thursday, April 26 to Saturday, April 28, at the Coriolis Theater Company Lab in the Fine Arts Building, 410 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 803, Chicago. Subsequent episodes run the last Friday of every month. See coriolistheater.org for information.

• Bruce Springsteen's seminal CD “Nebraska” inspired Tympanic Theatre Company's season finale, “Deliver Us From Nowhere: Tales from Nebraska,” opening Thursday, April 26, at The Right Brain Project, 4001 N. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago. Each song on the album inspired a 10-minute play adapted and directed by a different writer and director, accompanied by original music based on the plays. (773) 442-2882 or tympanictheatre.org.

• Actress/comedian Katy Colloton debuts her one-woman show, “What Would Carol Do?” comprised of a collection of oddball characters. It runs at 10:30 p.m. Thursdays, from April 26 to May 17, at iO Theater, 3541 N. Clark St., Chicago. (773) 880-0199 or ioimprov.com.

• “A Woman's Path,” a sendup of soul-bearing women's retreats, runs at 8 p.m. Thursdays through May 24 at the Annoyance Theatre, 4830 N. Broadway, Chicago. (773) 561-4665 or theannoyance.com.

• Next Theatre opens its 2012-2013 season with Charles' Mee's “Iphigenia 2.0,” a modern retelling of Euripides' “Iphigenia at Aulis” (Sept. 6-Oct. 14). It's followed by the Midwest premiere of Julie Marie Myatt's “Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter,” about a U.S. marine who returns from Iraq and is not quite ready to resume her life (Nov. 20-Dec. 23). Next up is the U.S. premiere of “Everything is Illuminated,” adapted by Simon Block from the novel by Jonathan Safron Foers about a young man who attempts to locate the woman who may have saved his grandfather from the Nazis (Feb. 21-March 31, 2013). The season concludes with Jessica Blank and Eric Jensen's “The Exonerated” (April 19-May 5). A coproduction with Northwestern University's Theatre and Interpretation Center and the Center on Wrongful Convictions, the play chronicles six former Death Row inmates whose convictions were reversed after new evidence revealed they did not commit the murders for which they were charged. That production takes place at Northwestern's Josephine Louis Theater, 20 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston. The other shows take place at the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes St. Evanston. Season subscriptions are available at the box office, nexttheatre.org or by phone at (847) 475-1875, ext. 2.

• Profiles Theatre's 24th anniversary season includes Midwest premieres from Neil LaBute, Tommy Nohilly, David West Read and Chad Beckim and a 20th anniversary remount of Will Kern's “Hellcab.”The 2012-2013 season begins with “Blood From a Stone,” a dark comedy about a troubled, working-class family by former Marine Nohilly. It runs Aug. 17-Oct. 7. Next up is Bekim's “After,” about a wrongfully imprisoned man exonerated by DNA evidence who tries to assimilate in a world that is foreign to him. (Sept. 21-Nov. 4). The 20th anniversary of “Hellcab,” Kern's darkly comic impressions of a Chicago cabbie's long Christmas Eve shift, runs Nov. 9-Dec. 23. Read's “The Dream of the Burning Boy,” about the reaction of a high school student to the sudden death of his favorite teacher, runs Jan. 18-March 10, 2013. The season concludes with LaBute's “The Break of Noon,” about a man who survives an office shooting and his sometimes tense, sometimes comic journey toward enlightenment (April 5-May 26, 2013). Season tickets, including Profiles' Flex Pass, are available at the box office at 4139 N. Broadway, Chicago, online at profilestheatre.org or by phone at (773) 549-1815.

• Beginning Wednesday, May 2, Mike Nussbaum will take over as Sigmund Freud and Coburn Goss will take over as C.S. Lewis in “Freud's Last Session,” the Mark St. Germain play about a meeting between the father of psychoanalysis and the Christian novelist and academic. Current stars Martin Rayner and Mark Dold perform through Sunday, April 29, at the Mercury Theater, 3745 N. Southport, Chicago. Chicago academics, atheists and psychologists will participate in several post-performance talk-backs in May, beginning Friday, May 11, with Wheaton College's Dr. Jerry Root, a C.S. Lewis scholar, and Dr. Michael Mangis, a psychology professor from Elburn. (773) 325-1700 or mercurytheaterchicago.com.

• “The Doyle & Debbie Show,” about an aging country star who teams up with a single mother looking to make it big in Nashville, will conclude its eight-month run at the Royal George Cabaret, 1641 N. Halsted St., Chicago on Sunday, May 27. (312) 988-9000 or doyleanddebbie.com.