The new guy at the Boise Hobby Lobby, Will seems at first like a character out of an Alexander Payne film like About Schmidt—searching for meaning by connecting with quirky strangers. But playwright Samuel Hunter is after more than a chronicle of midlife crisis. Will's attempts to reconnect with sullen teen son Alex mask his heart-of-darkness past with a Rapture-loving church. The juxtaposition between the Hobby Lobby's spit-and-polish corporate retail environment (Allison Cain is perfect as the beleaguered manager) and the howling anguish in Will's psyche (captured with hypnotic subtlety by Tom Hickey) makes this Livewire Chicago production a sympathetic if sometimes overcooked portrait of people terrified of falling into an abyss of loneliness and doubt. —Kerry Reid

Price: $15-$20