Staff picks

Sondheim's musical about friendship and ambition unfolds in reverse chronological order, tracing three friends' idealism back from adulthood's disappointments to youth's glowing optimism. Why we love it: The score ("Our Time," "Good Thing Going," "Not a Day Goes By") is one of Sondheim's most beloved, and Signature hasn't staged it in 20 years.

August Wilson's acclaimed drama follows trailblazing singer Ma Rainey and her band during a fraught 1920s Chicago recording session, as tensions with white studio executives build to a shattering finale. Why we love it: The Chicago Reader called it a genuine American masterpiece.

Step Afrika! premieres this stepping and percussion piece for America's 250th anniversary, examining what a nation still being built has inherited and what it's still fighting to become. Why we love it: Step Afrika! has spent three decades building an American art form from the body alone.

Ten years after its Ford's Theatre debut, this Tony-winning musical returns to tell the true story of Gander, Newfoundland, which welcomed 6,579 stranded airline passengers when 38 planes were diverted there on 9/11. Why we love it: This run lands on the 25th anniversary of that day.

Brian Quijada, the star of Mexodus, reimagines The Wizard of Oz as Dorothy becomes Reina, journeying from El Salvador to America to cumbia, mariachi, rock, and hip hop. Why we love it: It's inspired by the true story of Quijada's own mother's immigration.

Golden Globe winner Brian Cox plays Johann Sebastian Bach, forced into a musical duel with Frederick the Great's court, under Trevor Nunn's direction at Harman Hall. Why we love it: It's the play's only American stop after sold-out runs at Theatre Royal Bath and in the West End.

Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman's tap-heavy musical reimagines the film classic, with two 1930s jazz musicians disguising themselves as women to escape the mob. Why we love it: The production features an updated book by Tony winner Matthew Lopez and Late Night's Amber Ruffin.

Shakespeare's rarely staged comedy pits a corrupt official's demands against novice nun Isabella's vow of chastity, as new morality laws upend a bawdy, lawless Vienna. Why we love it: Psalmayene 24 won a Helen Hayes Award for Folger's Metamorphoses, and rare Shakespeare is worth the gamble.

Pulitzer winner Sanaz Toossi follows five friends in 1978 Karaj, Iran, from a wedding on the eve of revolution through a decade of upheaval. Why we love it: Toossi tells this story of diaspora from the perspective of those who stayed, not those who left.

Vanessa Severo writes and performs this solo portrait of Frida Kahlo, cracking open the pain and passion of an extraordinary life on the eve of the painter's death. Why we love it: It's been called visually lush and emotionally rich by the Chicago Sun-Times.