Celebrity Fitness Coach Jillian Michaels Comes to Chicago on May 10th.  Get tickets for $33 on Goldstar ($55 regularly).

Health and wellness expert Jillian Michaels brings her Maximize Your Life tour to Chicago for one night only. She’s helped millions turn their lives around for the better on NBC’s The Biggest Loser and Losing It With Jillian, in addition to her popular series of fitness DVDs and books — including her newest, Slim for Life: My Insider Secrets to Simple, Fast, and Lasting Weight Loss. Now see this powerhouse personality live and in person as she shows you how to harness your potential, kick-start your goals and live an exceptional life — sharing her keys to health, success and happiness. She offers no hype, no false promises … just results. Michaels knows what she’s talking about, having struggled with being overweight herself as a teenager. Let her help you blast through all those internal and external obstacles that are keeping you from living your best life.

The mischievous Cat in the Hat joins a cast of everyone’s favorite Dr. Seuss characters, including Gertrude McFuzz, Lazy Mayzie, the Whos of Whoville and the grouchy Grinch, to bring the author’s cherished tales to life on stage. Adapted from the Broadway version especially for young audiences, Seussical‘s stories are linked together by JoJo, a young boy who is a “thinker of strange and wonderful thinks,” and Horton the Elephant, who is out to prove that “a person’s a person, no matter how small.” Each whimsical story is backed by a myriad of musical styles, from Latin to pop, swing to gospel, and R&B to funk. Dr. Seuss’s sense of fun and wonder come through loud and clear, making this a musical that appeals to all ages.

We saw Seussical the Musical at Drury Lane a few years ago and I’ve already bought our tickets for this year – it’s that much fun!. Drury Lane always puts on excellent children’s shows – we’ve been going at least once a year since PITA was a little girl.  Choose from two performances on May 11.

Goldstar has A Study in Scarlet tickets from $6-$11 for dates through May.  A Study in Scarlet was the first Sherlock Holmes story from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Love Holmes (but not as much as Lord Peter).

It’s 1887 and a killer’s on the loose. The mysterious murderer has been leaving a trail of clues, writing “rache” — German for revenge — in blood on the wall above his victims. There’s only one pair who can solve this scary whodunnit: none other than detective Sherlock Holmes and his trusty sidekick, Dr. Watson. Paul Edwards (The Body Snatchers, We Have Always Lived in the Castle) directs this Promethean Theatre Ensemble production of A Study in Scarlet, which he adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Holmes story.

Death Takes a Holiday is such a great story, it’s not only been made into one movie, but two. It was first adapted as a 1934 film starring Fredric March, and in 1998 it was remade with Brad Pitt as Meet Joe Black. Death Takes a Holiday tells the all-too-human story of Death himself, who doesn’t understand why people are so afraid of him. So he decides to take human form for three days and hang out among the mortals — where he meets and falls in love with the beautiful young Grazia. But Death’s true test comes when he must decide whether to give up his own happiness so that his beloved may live.  Get tickets for almost half-off through Goldstar.

Chicago Improv of Schaumburg presents Mark Viera. Mark’s comedy is a blend of light-hearted impressions, stories about his eccentric family and his childhood in the Bronx, as well as hilarious observations to which everyone can relate. He’s performed stand-up on NBC’s Last Comic Standing, Starz’s Martin Lawrence Presents 1st Amendment Stand Up and Comedy Central’s Russell Simmons Presents: Stand-Up at the El Rey. He made his network television debut in the hit NBC series 30 Rock. His reputation as a trailblazer in the stand-up world earned him a spot with the “Top Dogs of Comedy,” one of the most sought after comedy groups in the U.S.

Score free tickets to the June 22 show at Soldier Field.  Created by IndyCar, NASCAR and off-road racing legend Robby Gordon, Stadium Super Trucks is mega-sized racing entertainment featuring 650-horsepower, Formula One-caliber custom machines that can soar as high as 120 feet and reach speeds of nearly 75 mph. This off-road event features some of the nation’s most well-known drivers, including the legendary Ricky Johnson, Arie Luyendyk, Jr., Justin Lofton, Justin Matney and, of course, Robby Gordon himself, each navigating challenging dirt tracks full of massive jumps, tricky crossovers and tight corners. Drivers will compete for a $60,000 nightly purse and $500,000 champion’s bonus at the conclusion of each season — the biggest purse in off-road — in this thrilling series of races the entire family can enjoy.

Goldstar has tickets starting at $5 for Brighton Beach Memoirs by Neil Simon.  PITA and I saw this on Broadway, where it was supposed to be followed by the second in his biographical trilogy, Broadway Bound.  Unfortunately, Broadway was enamored of special effects that year and ignored this gentle show; it closed shortly after it opened.  Honestly, it really was one of the best I’d seen (true-to-life humor); maybe I’ll pick up a pair of tickets and watch it again.

Neil Simon changed the course of his career when he wrote Brighton Beach Memoirs, the first play of his Tony Award-winning Eugene Trilogy. Never before had Simon’s writing been so personal, reflecting the actual individuals and hardships that defined his Depression-era youth. Brighton Beach Memoirs centers around Eugene Morris Jerome, a Jewish American teenager in the throes of puberty. Complicating Eugene’s coming-of-age are the relatives that crowd his family’s Brooklyn apartment, including his parents, his older brother, his aunt and his two female cousins, one of whom he finds far too attractive for his own good. Critics have praised the play for its humor, but also for its clear-eyed look at the tough choices that faced many American families in the ’30s. Brighton Beach Memoirs has all the force and vitality of real memories — and like them, lingers in the mind for years.