Theater spotlight
Tony Award-nominee and Broadway veteran André De Shields ( The Wiz, Ain't Misbehavin' ) is the very special guest star playing The Wizard for the return of WOZ: A Rock Cabaret. Instead of the classic 1939 MGM film score, WOZ features rock anthems of the 1980s and '90s to tell L. Frank Baum's all-American story of a young girl who gets whisked away to a magical land after a tornado hits her Kansas home. WOZ: A Rock Cabaret plays five shows only at Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. Performance times are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, July 14 and 15, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 16, and 2 p.m. Sunday, July 17. Tickets are $40. For more information, call 773-817-3000 or visit victorygardens.org .
Critics' Picks
Death of a Streetcar Named Virginia Woolf, Writers Theatre, Glencoe, extended through Aug. 14. Tim Ryder and Tim Sniffen's comic mashup of great American theater dramas by the likes of Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee and Thornton Wilder is a laugh riot. SCM
Deathtrap, Drury Lane Theatre, through Aug. 14. Ira Levin's classic 1978 Broadway thriller is given the luxury treatment in director William Osetek's top-notch revival that can still make audiences gasp out of shock. SCM
GhostBustier: The Story of the Real Ghostbusy, Gorilla Tango Theatre, through July 23. Those naughty burly-girls of Bucktown who brought you Game of Thongs and A Nude Hope are at it again, this time with a wholesome, skin-baring parody of the upcoming Hollywood summer blockuh, buster. MSB
Little Shop of Horrors, American Blues Theater at Greenhouse Theater Center, extended through July 31. Howard Ashman and Alan Menken's classic campy off-Broadway musical about a killer plant returns in a wonderfully sung and intimate production. SCM
By Abarbanel, Barnidge and Morgan