They may have taken the long way getting to our theater-rich city, but they're here now, and this fall, you won't want miss this alphabetical list:
Pictured: The Passion Of Dracula.The Voysey Inheritance. Photo by Johnny Knight.
—A Dublin Carol, Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted, 312-335-1650; Nov. 19-Dec. 21. Conor McPherson knows about alcoholics, having nearly perished at the age of 20 by the bottle. William Peterson returns home after his odd-job stint on the West Coast to lead the cast in this cozy study of whiskey-soaked regret and reckoning.
—Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Northlight Theatre at North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie, Skokie, 847-673-6300; Sept. 25-Oct. 26. It takes four actors in addition to the multifaceted Nick Sandys to play the famous Man of Two Minds in this adaptation by Jeffrey Hatcher, a triple-threat author renowned for his quirky POVs on deceptively benign costume-dramas.
—Frankenstein In Love; Will Act For Food at Chemically Imbalanced Theater, 1420 W. Irving Park, 773-327-9725; Sept. 25-Nov. 1. If you liked The Island of Dr. Moreau, you'll welcome this early adaptation of Mary Shelley's horror-gothic classic by the Hellraiser himself, Clive Barker, who relocates the action to Central America, where rebels seek to destroy an evil European ex-pat's mysterious laboratory.
—Grey Gardens; Northlight Theatre at North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 N. Skokie, Skokie, 847-673-6300; Nov. 20-Dec. 21. No matter how weary we might be of the Kennedy clan, how can we go wrong with a Tony-winning musical about a dotty mother and daughter in the snooty East Hamptons—especially when it features Hollis Resnik?
—Men of Tortuga; Profiles Theater, 4147 N. Broadway, 773-549-1815; Oct. 9-Dec. 7. It was a sold-out hit at the First Look workshop in 2005, but it took three years for a Chicago company to get the full-production rights to Jason Wells' comic tale of bungling saboteurs. And while you watch, try to guess which actor was once an actual secret service agent.
—The Passion Of Dracula; First Folio Theatre at Mayslake Peabody Estate, 1717 W. 31st, Oak Brook, 630-986-8067; Oct. 4-Nov. 2. Frank Langella's Broadway star power eclipsed this off-Broadway adaptation of the venerable Bram Stoker chiller in 1977, but First Folio thinks it high time to resurrect the tongue-in-cheek vampire yarn. Why not when your playhouse is an eerie neo-Tudor mansion?
—The Seafarer; Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted, 312-335-1650; Dec. 4-Feb. 8, 2009. Just because Conor McPherson's play is set on Christmas Eve doesn't make it a holiday show. Nor is the ominous stranger who joins the regulars at an Irish pub for a friendly game of poker necessarily a benevolent ghost sent for their improvement.
—The Voysey Inheritance; Remy Bumppo Theatre at the Greenhouse, 2257 N. Lincoln., 773-404-7336; Sept. 21-Nov. 2. Harley Granville-Barker may have written his socio-drama in 1905—that is, after Shaw's Widower's House and before Miller's All My Sons—but look for David Mamet's adaptation to also have something to say about the unsavory sources of Old Money.