Curious Theatre Branch can pat itself on the back this week: its fringe theater festival, Rhinofest, is full of recommended performances. The American Drink Book is a poignant tale told at 2 AM by the last sad-eyed sap at the bar. The absurdist play Today Like a Kind of Shivering is resonant and compelling despite its impenetrability. With Stranger(s), based on short stories by Daphne du Maurier and Flannery O'Connor, the fun is in watching real-life couple Mike McKune and Kelly Anchors effortlessly trade off their roles as deceived and deceiver.

Less successful is I Love You Permanently, which tells the tale of an entire relationship over the course of a single night but seems to drag on much longer. Curious Theatre Branch paterfamilias Beau O'Reilly, meanwhile, tells a sweet, cracked Irish love story in Our Kate Takes a Trip.

Also recommended: Blizzard '67, a black comedy in which a legendary Chicago snow storm proves to be no match for the icy animosity between four male co-workers, and Devils Don't Forget, a hallucinatory nightmare you don't want to wake up from.

If you're longing for some spirited dance, don't miss Hubbard Street Dance Chicago's "Danc(e)volve", at the Museum of Contemporary Art

On the other hand, you may be better off avoiding The Ghost is Here , an erratic, confusing tale of a con man who swindles Japanese villagers in the aftermath of World War II; I Am Saying This Right Now, which somewhat indulgently explores the connections between aural and oral histories; The Legend of Buster Neal, a sometimes riveting, sometimes stultifying production that tells the story of a contemporary African-American family's troubles; and Little Triggers, a modern-day Christmas Carol, only without any semblance of a coherent plot.