Okay, I’d never even heard of this place before!  The secret history of Terezin, Hitler’s model “City for the Jews,” is one of the most sorrowful — and surreal — chapters of World War II. Filled with prominent Jewish writers, artists, entertainers and thinkers, the grim citadel was portrayed as a cultural paradise when in fact it was a brutal concentration camp. Signs of Life: a New Musical follows one Lorelei Schumann as this talented art student is deported from her native Prague to Terezin. Once there, her very survival depends upon her participation in the Nazi propaganda effort. Risking her life to tell the truth, she discovers who she is as a woman, a Jew and an artist. Megan Long, one of the Chicago Tribune‘s “Hot New Faces in Chicago Theatre,” stars as Lorelei in this production at the Victory Gardens Theater.  Get tickets for up to 70% off on Goldstar.

Get discounted tickets (FREE to $8.50) to the Jedlicka Performing Arts Center’s production of one of the greatest American plays written to date:  A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams’ landmark drama of the culture clash between the Old South and the rising urban working class. The intense passion behind brutish Stanley Kowalski’s iconic howl of “Stelllaaa!!” and the tragic emotion behind fragile Blanche DuBois’ illusion of Old Southern gentility is brought to powerful life on stage. Set during a steamy 1940s summer in New Orleans’ French Quarter, raw pathos leads ultimately to tragedy.  Note that the FREE tickets do not include a $5.50 service charge.