John Patrick Shanley's Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning 2005 drama Doubt: A Parable, receives a site-specific staging by gay director William Brown in the library space of Glencoe Union Church.

See how the drama plays out in such an appropriately environmental space as you watch a stern nun's maneuvers once she suspects a new and reforming priest of being a sexual abuser. Writers Theatre's production of Doubt: A Parable continues through July 19 at Glencoe Union Church, 263 Park Ave., Glencoe. Performances are 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 4 and 8 p.m. Saturdays and 2 and 6 p.m. Sundays. There are 2 p.m. matinees on select Wednesdays. Tickets are $35 to $75; call 847-242-6000 or visit Link Here .

Photo courtesy of Writers Theatre

CRITICS'

PICKS

Billy Elliot, Drury Lane Theatre, Oakbrook Terrace, through June 7. Director/choreographer Rachel Rockwell works wonders at staging Elton John and Lee Hall's 2005 musical adaptation of the acclaimed 2000 British film. Make sure you have a few hankies as you watch this touching story of a northern English lad who discovers a love of dance during the difficulties of British miner's strike. SCM

The Diary of Anne Frank, Writers Theatre, Glencoe, through June 28. The revised script of this familiar drama incorporates long-expurgated diary passages that make Anne more human and less saintly. This production also looks afresh at the characters to make them less archetypal and more nuanced. SCM

Marie Antoinette, Steppenwolf Theatre, through May 10. Move over, Evita—Alana Arenas delivers a rococo rock-star turn as one of history's most glamorous and misunderstood monarchs. MSB

Lips Together, Teeth Apart, Eclipse Theatre Company at Athenaeum Theatre, through May 24. Gay playwright Terrence McNally makes a compassionate case for a het quartet searching on a Fire Island Fourth of July in 1991. MSB

—By Abarbanel, Barnidge and Morgan