Theater

Spotlight: Metropolis revives backstage farce ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’

Posted February 17, 2026 9:59 am

Johanna McKenzie Miller, artistic director for the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre, helms the theater’s revival of the 2012 farce “The Play That Goes Wrong.”

Fine time for a farce

Metropolis Performing Arts Centre artistic director Johanna McKenzie Miller helms a revival of “The Play That Goes Wrong,” the 2012 farce by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields about an amateur theater company’s disastrous production of a fictional British whodunit in which everything that could go wrong does go wrong.

Previews at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, Feb. 25-27, at 111 W. Campbell St., Arlington Heights. The show opens Feb. 28. $25-$49. (847) 577-2121 or MetropolisArts.com.

Andrea San Miguel plays Maria, a Cuban novelist on house arrest with her sister Sofia (Neysha Mendoza Castro) in Writers Theatre’s revival of “Two Sisters and a Piano” by Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz.

Writers Theatre stages ode to liberty

Lisa Portes marks her Writers Theatre directing debut with “Two Sisters and a Piano,” Nilo Cruz’s tale of oppression and resilience inspired by the true story of Cuban poet and activist Maria Elena Cruz Varela, who was attacked in her home, forced to swallow pages of her writings and subsequently imprisoned for two years. The action centers around novelist Maria Celia (Andrea San Miguel) and her sister Sofia (Neysha Mendoza Castro), whose house arrest is shaken by the arrival of a young piano tuner and a military officer infatuated with Maria Celia’s writing.

Previews at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, Feb. 26-27; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Feb. 28 and March 4; 2 and 7 p.m. March 1; and 7:30 p.m. March 5 at 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe. The show opens March 6. $35-$95. (847) 242-6000 or writerstheatre.org.

Neysha Mendoza Castro plays Sofia, who is under house arrest with her Cuban novelist sister Maria (Andrea San Miguel), in Writers Theatre’s revival of “Two Sisters and a Piano” by Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz. Courtesy of Stephanie Girard Photography

Tortured love triangle

Ego Death Theatre Collective, which debuted in 2023, revives “Red Light Winter,” Adam Rapp’s three-hander that premiered 21 years ago at Steppenwolf Theatre. A play about broken people looking for love, the action centers around friends Matt and Davis as well as Christina, the prostitute Davis hires as a present for Matt. Note: The play depicts violence and a sexual encounter of dubious consent and references suicide.

7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 20-21, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 22, and through March 8 at the Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago. $27. egodeaththeatrecollective.org.

Lenin Izquierdo, center, seen here during a rehearsal, plays the titular character in Goodman Theatre’s premiere of the English adaptation of “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” adapted from Junot Díaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Marco Antonio Rodríguez. Courtesy of Hugo Hentoff

Goodman’s English adaptation of Pulitzer-winning novel

Goodman Theatre’s centennial season continues with a new adaptation of “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” Junot Díaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about Oscar (Lenin Izquierdo), a nerdy Dominican college freshman and aspiring writer looking for love and a way to end the curse that dooms family members to ill-fated love affairs, political oppression, accidents and other threats. Wendy Mateo directs Marco Antonio Rodríguez’s world-premiere English adaptation.

Previews at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 22 and 28; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, Feb. 25-27; and 2 p.m. March 1 at 170 N. Dearborn St., Chicago. The show opens March 2. $39-$59. (312) 443-3800 or goodmantheatre.org/.

Theatre Y’s elegy for refugees

Theatre Y opens its 20th season with “Charges (The Supplicants),” by Austrian playwright and Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek. Loosely based on Aeschylus’ “The Supplicants,” the play examines the global refugee crisis and the conflict between humanitarian and political ideals. Co-founder Melissa Lorraine co-directs the production with Héctor Alvarez.

7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, Feb. 26-28, and 5 p.m. March 1 and through March 29 at 3611 W. Cermak Road, Chicago. Free, but reservations are required and donations are accepted. Theatre-y.com.