Jae-Ha Kim

“Because I have a lot of property and horses, I am always moving something heavy and rarely sitting down,” says Linda Eder, who’s best known for her work on Broadway in “Jekyll & Hyde.” “I also like to do home remodeling, which is hard work. I’m always overdoing it. So when I go on vacation I like to really go on vacation — meaning I like to rest, without too many distractions. I like to lie in the sun by the ocean, eat great food and relax.”

There are some of us who lived through the 1970s who not only loved the soundtrack of that era, but also have fond memories of that decade’s music–even schmaltzy numbers such as “You Light Up My Life,” “I’m Not in Love” and, yes, “I Write the Songs.” So it’s not surprising that Rick Seeber came up with “8-Track, the Sounds of the ’70s.” What is unfortunate, however, is that the director either had too little time to craft an innovative stage production or just didn’t care enough about the music to attempt doing it justice.

If there was anything lacking at the Blue Man Group’s “Complex Rock Tour” Saturday night at the Rosemont Theatre, I didn’t notice. PVC pipes, Judy Jetson dresses and an odd little trio of bald, blue men. …What more could you ask for in a rock ‘n’ roll concert?

Long before “La Cage Aux Folles,” “Tootsie” and the much-maligned “Bosom Buddies,” Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon were making like women in “Some Like It Hot.” Curtis returns to the gender-bending format in the musical version of “Some Like It Hot,” which opened Tuesday night at the Rosemont Theatre. This time around, instead of playing one of the randy young men posing as a woman, he portrays a randy old man who falls in love with one of the women who really is a man.

You know Jeremy Piven. Or at least you think you do. Chances are you attended Evanston Township High School with him, or were in acting classes with him at his parents’ Piven Theatre Workshop, or knew someone who knew someone who did.

“Blast!” represents every band geek’s revenge. Though the show evolved from the routines of the Star of Indiana drums corps, make no mistake about it. This is no school production and there are no nerds in “Blast!,” which just opened at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre.

Gina Oswald is a fictional character, but you’ll recognize her immediately when you see her cheesy schtick in the Noble Fool Theater’s revival of the holiday revue “Roasting Chestnuts: Oy! It’s Christmas.” She is the performer whose insincerity rings through with every verse. She is the entertainer who doesn’t realize her moment has long since passed. And to her whipped co-stars, she is the lipsticked tyrant who rules her brood with an iron fist.

Savion Glover’s lean, nimble legs whip across the stage in a way that defies speed. But it’s when he slows down that the viewer is able to fully relish each syncopated, seemingly effortless step. With his trademark locks flying and amplified tap shoes pounding away, he creates music as much as dance. With “Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk,” the Broadway production that won the performer a Tony Award for choreography six years ago, Glover attempts to educate as he entertains. He tells the story of the African-American experience through a series of vignettes ranging from lynchings, to race riots, to everyday racism in the form of cabbies refusing to pick up black passengers.

The Fantasticks” is a charming musical set during a time when walls were able to keep young lovers apart and parental matchmaking was an accepted form of courtship. Tom Jones (no, not that one) and Harvey Schmidt wrote “The Fantasticks” for a summer theater production at Barnard College. It opened Off-Broadway in 1960. The longest-running musical in the world, it closed in New York in January after 17,162 performances over the past 42 years.

Jinkies! The Scooby gang is up to it again in this delightful theatrical production of “Scooby-Doo! in Stagefright–Live on Stage.” Presented as a long-lost episode of the late 1960s cartoon series, the production no doubt was concocted to drum up interest in the film version of the series, which will premiere in June. A trailer for the movie starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. was shown during intermission.