Theater spotlight
What's a struggling mom-and-pop burger joint to do when a fast-food conglomerate moves in next door? The answer: Host a bachelor/bachelorette auction as a massive fundraiser. Find out how things go in Playlab Productions' Hot Buns & Beefcakes: Linda Belcher's Love Connection, by Sean Margaret Wagner, which she describes as an ode to the TV series Bob's Burgers. Hot Buns & Beefcakes: Linda Belcher's Love Connection continues at 10:30 p.m. Saturdays through Feb. 25 at The Playground Theater, 3209 N. Halsted St. Tickets are $10 and $30-$40 for Valentines packages. For more information, visit PlayLabProductions.com .
Critics' Picks
Blues for an Alabama Sky, Court Theatre, through Feb. 19. Pearl Cleage's romantic account of brave young pilgrims during the Harlem Renaissance deserves to run forever, but it's only extended to Feb. 19, so delay at your own risk. MSB
Cymbeline, Strawdog Theatre at Factory Theater, through Feb. 25. Not your pink chiffon and curved-wrist Shakespeare, but a romantic comedy as robust, rollicking and randy as a classroom of classics scholars on a post-finals caffeine spree. MSB
The Tall Girls, Shattered Globe Theatre at Theater Wit, through Feb. 25. Meg Miroshnik's wistful Depression Era drama shows how basketball enlivens the dreams of young women who are brave enough to push against regimented societal expectations of them. SCM
The Temperamentals, About Face Theatre at Theater Wit, through Feb. 18. Jim Marans' intelligent play illuminates perhaps the most-important pre-Stonewall event in American LGBTQ history: the 1952 founding of the Mattachine Society by unlikely lovers Harry Hay and future fashion-great Rudi Gernreich. JA
By Abarbanel, Barnidge and Morgan