The holiday shows and best-of lists are behind us, but a few hits from last year are still running. A Red Orchid Theatre runs A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant through Jan. 17. (Apparently, it’s always the season for L. Ron Hubbard and Xenu.) Redtwist Theatre runs its widely acclaimed presentation of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman, directed by Kimberly Senior, through Feb. 6.

And in the Welcome Revivals category, Redmoon brings back 2005’s The Cabinet, Mickle Maher’s brilliant re-imagining of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, opening Feb. 5. The company is also running a special promotion—e-mail them with one sentence of why you should win tickets to the show, and if your response is creative enough, you may be selected to watch from backstage. (Presumably you will not be required to do stagehand work for free in return for this.) You can also plan ahead for the company’s annual Spectacle Lunatique 20^th anniversary party on March 12.

Red Tape Theatre hosts its second annual Chicago Fringe Artists Networking Night (CFANN) on Feb. 6. Artists of all disciplines are encouraged to attend. It’s at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 621 W. Belmont Ave., and tickets are $20, which covers food, drink (including alcohol), and interactive performances.

And that is all the Red theatre news that’s fit to print. Sorry, Red Ink, better luck next time!

Those who missed seeing the “Do-It-Yourself-Messiah” in December can enjoy Handel with an African American beat with “Too Hot to Handel: The Jazz-Gospel Messiah,” playing at the Auditorium Theatre Jan. 16 and 17 as part of a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Tenor Roderick Dixon and soprano Alfreda Burker reprise their roles, and are joined by alto Karen Marie Richardson (who also appeared at the Auditorium this summer in the revival of Apple Tree’s The Mistress Cycle). A 150-voice choir, 50-piece symphony orchestra, and a jazz ensemble add to the joyful noise of Gary Anderson and Bob Christianson’s idiomatic reworking of a classic.

Young writers take center stage in Pegasus Players ’ 24th annual Young Playwrights Festival, running now through Jan. 31. Ilesa Duncan is the festival director this year, and she also directs The Gimmick at Pegasus in February. The latter marks the Chicago premiere of Dael Orlandersmith’s play—Orlandersmith herself appeared in her solo Stoop Stories at the Goodman this past fall.

Halcyon Theatre celebrates the work of Maria Irene Fornes in the annual Alcyone Festival, beginning Jan. 21. Six plays—all but one of them Chicago premieres—by the influential-but-underproduced writer take center stage at Lincoln Square Theatre in the Barry United Methodist Church, 4754 N. Leavitt.

Infamous Commonwealth Theatre hosts its fifth annual 24-Hour Project, in which a group of artists has one full day to create and stage a short original play. You can see the results on Saturday, Jan. 16 at Vittum Theater, 1012 N. Noble Street.

Arthur Kopit, the author of Wings, Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad, and the book for Nine, among many other credits, takes over Chicago Dramatists the weekend of Feb. 20-21. Kopit and artistic director Russ Tutterow sit down for a “Fireside Chat” (well, no real fireplace, we presume) on Saturday at 2 p.m., and Kopit teaches a master class on Sunday from 10 a.m.- 5 p.m. It’s $300 for full participation in the class, limited to 12 Dramatists resident and network playwrights, and $100 to observe. There are no limits on observer enrollments. In other Dramatists news (not involving guys named “Keith Huff”), the company has adopted the Chicago Avenue Blue Line el station just outside its door, and hired Chicago artist Peter N. Gray to create new artwork for the station, funded by the company, the West Town Chamber of Commerce, and Dramatists board member Patrice Fletcher. (Just a warning, though—those el stations look so cute when they’re little at the shelter, but after you adopt them, they just keep growing and growing!)

Okay, we lied back there: we do have another “Red” event. Links Hall , one of the best presenters of interdisciplinary performance in town, hosts a benefit on Feb. 23 at The Red Canary, 695 N. Milwaukee. “Thaw: Links Hall ’s Hot Night of Winter Ballyhoo” offers a sneak peak at new work curated by Seth Bockley, The World is Flat, which runs at Links Feb. 25-28 as a celebration of “toy theatre.” The show includes work by New York-based Great Small Works, as well as Chicagoans Chantal Calato, Meredith Miller, Blair Thomas, and Michael Montenegro of Theatre Zarko. Montenegro’s outfit reprises The Sublime Beauty of Hands/Klown Kantos at Next Theatre , this weekend through Jan. 17. (Somebody—cough, cough—named that piece one of the best shows of the year.) Links has a dizzying line-up throughout the spring, and one of my resolutions for the new decade (shut up, purists—the aughts couldn’t end soon enough to suit me) is to remember to check out the work there on a more regular basis, as it is truly one of the unsung treasures of local performance.

The Center for Performing Arts at Governors State University, way the heck down in the south ’burbs, offers a chance to sing live on stage with five Broadway stars in Neil Berg’s 100 Years of Broadway, which plays at the Center on March 14. Between now and Feb. 8, you can audition online at www.singingwiththebroadwaystars.com. A panel of judges, including Berg himself, will select one winner and eight runners-up. Meantime, Broadway in Chicago has announced the cast for the local production of Tony-winning musical Billy Elliot, which opens in previews March 18 at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts/Oriental Theatre. Two Chicagoans have “name” roles, including Susie McMonagle as Billy’s Mum and Blake Hammond as Mr. Braithwaite. Other locals in the show are Elijah Barker, Tony Clarno, Kayla King, and Mark Page. The lead role will be split between John Peter (J.P.) Viernes, Tommy Batchelor, Giuseppe Bausilio, and Cesar Corrales.

First Folio Theatre will warm up the cold DuPage County winter nights with Jeeves in Bloom, opening in previews on Jan. 27. The company also received a $10,000 grant from the DuPage Community Foundation for its educational outreach programming, which will help fund a new director of outreach for First Folio.

Companies who would like to get their mitts on another $10K for rigging should apply to Chicago Flyhouse for the sixth annual “Strings Attached” grant. All tax-exempt performing arts companies in Chicago and the near ’burbs (we’ll let them define that for you) are invited to apply. The deadline is March 1, and the application can be downloaded at the website.

If you’re in Lemont this weekend—we’re sorry. (We kid, we kid—as a native of Downers Grove, the Royal We in charge of this column has no business mocking anybody else’s burg.) Seriously, if you’re out that way and want to help a small company, drop by Seamus McGhee’s for a benefit on Sunday for NightBlue Theater . The company performs in Chicago, too, but they are based in the ’burbs. Dine between noon and 7 p.m., and 15 percent of your tab supports NightBlue, as well as 100 percent of the gratuities—because the wait staff will be made up entirely of company members and board members. (Theatre people waiting tables—how unusual! Then again, we’re pretty sure you’ll never see Roche Schulfer taking orders at Petterinos.) And yes, they will have the NFL playoffs on so you won’t miss out.

Even further afield, Timber Lake Playhouse in Mount Carroll announces a new general manager. Melissa Mattingly Parsons joins the summer stock company in that capacity after working with TLP since 2001, and will oversee all publicity, marketing, fiscal, and front-of-house operations.

After some bumps in the road that shuttered the place for a few months right after its initial opening, the restored Morse Theatre at 1328-30 W. Morse Avenue in Rogers Park will re-open this spring as the Mayne Stage and Act One Café. The 299-seat venue, a former nickelodeon that also served as a synagogue and a shoe repair shop (but not simultaneously!) for a time, will offer primarily live music, booked by Denise McGowan of McGowan Durpetti & Associates, while the Act One Café will focus on new American cuisine overseen by chef Jimmy Madla (onetime drummer for Veruca Salt) of Coobah Restaurant on Southport. Let’s hope the venture gives a shot in the arm to the vital, but struggling, Morse Avenue corridor.

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