Profiles Theatre announces an extension of its hit production of Tracy Letts’ Killer Joe, directed by Steppenwolf ensemble member Rick Snyder, through April 11. That one is definitely not for the kiddies, but fans of Barrel of Monkeys ’ long-running That’s Weird, Grandma!, created from stories penned by schoolchildren, can take in Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. now through April 4 at the Neo-Futurarium. The Monday evening performances resume March 15 in an open run. And Michael Shannon, company member of A Red Orchid Theatre , longtime Letts associate, and an Academy Award nominee last year for Revolutionary Road, steps into David Cromer’s shoes as the Stage Manager in Cromer’s long-running production of Our Town at the Barrow Street Theatre, which celebrates its first anniversary this coming week. Cromer got a nice profile in the New York Times Sunday Magazine last weekend.

Mick Napier, founder of The Annoyance, who just directed The Taming of the Flu for Second City ’s 50th anniversary, will direct his first sketch show for his home theatre in its 22-year history—his past Annoyance outings have been musicals (including the long-running cult classic Co-Ed Prison Sluts), plays, or “theme-related pieces.” The still-untitled show will run Saturday nights at 10 p.m. and opens in previews on March 13.

Rising local playwright Randall Colburn’s Pretty Penny just opened at the adventurous Right Brain Project . The piece follows the sexual misadventures of a group of people who are linked by a fictitious alter ego created by a phone sex operator. Even-more-prolific playwright Laura Jacqmin, who won the Wendy Wasserstein Prize in 2008, has been selected for the Sundance Theatre Lab at Governors Island in New York, running May 23-June 6. Jacqmin will workshop her play Look, We Are Breathing. The East Coast location temporarily fills in for the Utah home base, which is undergoing renovations. Jacqmin’s piece just had a reading at Chicago Dramatists , where she is a resident playwright, last weekend.

In other Dramatists news, the company announces a partnership with Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights. Playwriting classes will be held April 10-11. The aim is for playwrights to create a one-act on Saturday and hear it read on Sunday under the guidance of resident playwright Robert Koon. The cost is $180, and reservations can be made through the Metropolis education office, 847/577-5982, ext. 221, or at www.metropolisarts.com/sopa. Other Dramatists resident playwrights in the news are, of course, Keith Huff, who has just signed up as a staff writer for a.m.c’s Mad Men (or what some of us think of as “that show that keeps us from writing our reviews on Sunday night”); Lydia R. Diamond, whose Stick Fly (first produced by Congo Square Theatre Company opens tonight at the Huntington in Boston, on the heels of its run at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.; and John Green, whose play The Liquid Moon, produced in 2002 at Dramatists, gets a reading at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.

In Congo Square news, the company announces “The Legacy Drive” to help fund its 10th anniversary season. From April 23-May 2, The Legacy Festival offers staged readings of 10 of the company’s greatest past hits at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts, 777 N. Green. Tickets (which include wine and noshables) are $10, and can be reserved at 773/296-1108 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Oak Park Festival Theatre celebrates 35 years of delivering Shakespeare and more under the stars (and indoors at Pleasant Home) with a benefit on March 12. Tickets are $35 (see a trend here?) and include a casual dinner and a silent auction to be held in a coyly unidentified Frank Lloyd Wright home in Oak Park. To reserve, call 708/445-4440 by Feb. 28.

Monday night, Feb. 22, at 7 p.m., Victory Gardens offers a special show through its “Fresh Squeezed” solo performance series. Samuel G. Roberson, Jr., who will soon be seen on stage at the Biograph in Lonnie Carter’s The Lost Boys of Sudan, relates his story of battling leukemia as an eight-year-old in And They Said I Wouldn’t Make It: A Story of Hope. In addition to Roberson’s story (directed by A. Todd Douglas), there will be a bone marrow drive in the lobby of the Biograph from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.. It only involves a simple cheek swab to be placed on the registry of the Be The Match Foundation—and you could save a life like Roberson’s.

Piven Theatre Workshop hosts a special presentation of excerpts from the upcoming show Number of People this Sunday, Feb. 21, 1:30 p.m., at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, 9603 Woods Drive, Skokie. Longtime actor (and retired Northwestern sociology prof) Bernard Beck, whose daughter, Emilie, wrote this play about a Holocaust survivor and statistician, will perform scenes, and a discussion about memory and identity loss among those who survived the Holocaust will take place. The event is free with museum admission—call 847/967-4889 for reservations.

Tickets are also on sale now for Redmoon’s annual Spectacle Lunatique, slated for March 12 at Redmoon Central. The company’s 20th anniversary celebration will probably sell out quickly, so order tickets (beginning at $150 for individuals) at 312/850-8440, ext 111 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Lake Forest Dance Academy hosts a benefit concert on Feb. 28 at Raymond Moore Auditorium, Lake Forest High School, 1285 N. McKinley Rd. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for children, and the entertainment includes a sneak peek of The Triple Threat Ensemble’s upcoming production of Hairsprayed and the 60s (the TTE is a joint project of LFDA and Citadel Theatre ). Call 847/810-3948 for reservations.

First Folio Theatre names Megan Schutt as director of educational outreach. Schutt, who earned her MFA from Ohio State University and taught undergrad courses there, also worked in educational programs with Lookingglass Theatre Company and at the University of Utah’s Theater School for Youth.

The Ruckus Theater names five new ensemble members: Timo Aker, Aaron Dean, Kate Holst, Byron Melton and Brian Ruby. The 13-member ensemble is now at work on The Gay American, a world-premiere musical fantasia by Kristian O’Hare about former New Jersey governor James McGreevey, who resigned his office in 2004 after coming out. The show, directed by Allison Shoemaker, is slated to open in May and replaces the previously announced Linear A by Ryan Dolley.

If the big buffoons of talk radio have got you down, take solace with WGN vet Jerry Agar, “Jerry’s Kidders,” and his new comedy, You’re On the Air, which gets a one-night stand at the Irish American Heritage Center on Saturday, Feb. 27, 8 p.m.. Agar offers a fictional account of one man’s adventures from town to town, up and down the dial (if you get that reference—congratulations, you’re old like me!), complete with crazy callers. The piece was created by Agar, Tim Slagle, Ken Sevara, Debbie Maxwell and Vicki Quade, and directed by Cecilie D. Keenan. Tickets are $25 at 773/282-7035, ext. 10.

Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) is in the running to be the first woman to ever win an Oscar for directing a film, so it’s a great time for the Midwest Independent Film Festival to host a “Female Filmmakers Night.” The festivities begin at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 2 at Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema, 2828 N. Clark. The lineup includes Jenni Olson’s 575 Castro Street, a tribute to Harvey Milk; Samantha Hart and Jennifer Moody’s Race You!, a musical video for the band Elizabeth and the Catapult; A Short Film (not sure if that’s the title or the description!), a piece about an urban legend shot on location at the Hideout by Holly Todd, Sarah Schooley, and Merje Veski; Look for Me, by Laura Heit, about a woman who finds she is invisible; and Bring It In, by Neo-Futurist vet Dina Facklis, about a struggling middle-school basketball coach, along with other shorts by women filmmakers.

One of the most celebrated contemporary women playwrights, Young Jean Lee, gets her first Chicago outing with The Shipment at the Museum of Contemporary Art, March 26-28. Tickets will probably go quickly, so don’t miss out on this piece that satirizes identity politics. On Tuesday, March 23, 6-8 p.m., the MCA hosts a free roundtable, “Writing for Change,” about cultural identity and the American experience. The lineup includes director Jonathan Wilson and playwrights Lee, Kristoffer Diaz (The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity), Tanya Saracho (Our Lady of the Underpass, soon to re-open at 16th Street in Berwyn), and Tarrell Alvin McCraney, author of the celebrated The Brother/Sister Plays at Steppenwolf.

Season of Concern names three new board members: producer Mike Checuga (Broutil & Frothingham, Lukaba Productions); actress and producer of “Chicago Queercast” Amy Matheny; and Steppenwolf ensemble member Rondi Reed, who accepted an award at Season of Concern’s annual benefit in December and announced her willingness to serve on the board as she collected her bling.

Two programs geared for young theatre artists had special visitors this past month. On Saturday, Feb. 6, Brian Dennehy sat down for an insightful interview with the Cindy Bandle Young Critics Circle. CBYCC is a program run through the Goodman Theatre ’s education department and the Association for Women Journalists http://awj.camp8.org/) that mentors young women who are juniors in high school on theatre criticism. (I’m one of the mentors.) Then on Tuesday, Feb. 9, some members of the cast and crew for the touring production of August: Osage County came to Free Street Theater to see their current hit production of To Kill a Teenager: Seven Sins of the Juvenile Mind, now running through Feb. 27. Bryn Magnus, understudy for the national tour (and husband of Amy Warren, who plays Karen Weston) used to be the managing director for Free Street, and his former mentees gave him and the rest of the special audience (including this writer) a fantastic show and a rousing welcome.

We end on sad notes: Our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Kat Saari, a stage manager and ensemble member of Eclipse Theatre Company who died suddenly this past Monday. Saari, a Northwestern University grad, joined Eclipse in 2008. Cards can be sent to Eclipse for Saari's family. The address is 4001 N. Ravenswood, Suite 402, Chicago, IL 60613.

Bill Utterback, the Al Hirschfeld of Second City whose caricatures of the troupe’s cast members have adorned the walls of the Wells Street emporium for decades, died on Feb. 8 after a long illness. We send our sympathies to his family.

Two memorials have now been set for Effie Mihopoulos, poet and champion of the literary, theatre, and arts scene in Chicago who passed away from cancer on Jan. 14. On Friday, March 5, from 5-7 p.m., Effie will be remembered at Alumni Hall at Northeastern Illinois University’s campus. And on Saturday, March 6, 1-3 p.m., another memorial takes place at the Newberry Library. Effie’s friend Cathleen Schandelmaier-Bartels can answer questions about the memorials at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Stay well and send tips—with your real name, please!—to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .