The best of our 2016 theater adventures featured Kate Fry: Marjorie Prime, Arcadia, and Electra. She is a mesmerizing talent, both fierce and vulnerable, and our family proudly comprises the executive board of her unofficial fan club. Other 2016 highlights included the Court Theatre’s staging of Long Day’s Journey into Night; the Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s two-part bardathon, Tug of War; Jonathan Pryce in The Merchant of Venice; and The Gift Theatre’s production of Richard III.

■ A Q Brothers’ Christmas Carol (January; Chicago Shakespeare Theater)
■ The Heir Apparent (January; Chicago Shakespeare Theater)
■ Marjorie Prime (January; Writers Theatre)
■ The Winter’s Tale (January; Shakespeare Project of Chicago)
■ Cymbeline (February; Shakespeare Project of Chicago)
■ Romeo and Juliet (March; Lyric Opera)
■ Arcadia (March; Writers Theatre)
■ Long Day’s Journey into Night (March; Court Theatre)
■ Othello (March; Chicago Shakespeare Theater)
■ The Life of Galileo (April; Remy Bumppo Theatre Company)
■ Cardenio (April; Shakespeare Project of Chicago)
■ Richard III (April; The Gift Theatre at The Garage: Steppenwolf Theatre)
■ Othello: The Remix (April; Chicago Shakespeare Theater)
■ Tug of War: Foreign Fire (June; Chicago Shakespeare Theater)
■ The Merchant of Venice (August; Shakespeare’s Globe at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater)
■ Julius Caesar (September; Writers Theatre)
■ Tug of War: Civil Strife (October; Chicago Shakespeare Theater)
■ Henry V (October; Shakespeare Project of Chicago)
■ Electra (November; Court Theatre)
■ The Winter’s Tale (December; Chicago Shakespeare Theater)
■ King Charles III (December; Chicago Shakespeare Theater)