It’s a spooky time of year and area theater companies are in the spirit– here’s a wrap up of the latest onstage!

Thalia Gerloff, Paul Melendy, Doug Lockwood in DRACULA: A COMEDY OF TERRORS/Benjamin Rose Photography

My fave to date: DRACULA: A COMEDY OF TERRORS opens the 23rd season for Actors’ Shakespeare Project. This bloody funny farce by Gordon Greenberg & Steve Rosen stokes Bram’s legendary vampire tale with gags and puns, Shakespeare’s quotes, Beatles and Swiftie lyrics, and Mel Brooks and Monty Python’s eternal silliness. It’s all delivered by five of the most limber comedic actors around town led by comic genius PAUL MELENDY in the title role. His bloodsucking Transylvanian is part Elvis, part Richard Simmons– mesmerizing, omni-sexual, scary funny and just plain scary, either dolled up in pink or strutting in leather, straddling his prey like a mantis in heat. Melendy bridges the humor and the horror with enormous control and a prominent piece of cod.

Directed by Christopher V. Edwards with seamless abandon, the rest of this terrific cast does hilarious double duty, quick-changing in dual roles, in the same scene, to hysterical effect! Bobbie Steinbach kills as both buttoned up Dr. Westfeldt and insect-addicted Renfield. Thalia Gerloff is the ebullient object of the count’s obsession, Lucy, as well as an Uber-like coachman, and later a maidservant; the towering Doug Lockwood plays the unexpectedly female Dr. Jean Van Helsing a Nordic Vampire hunter but reaches comedic heights as Lucy’s flat-footed, sex-starved, recessive gene-riddled sister Mina. The show goes to eleven after Nicholas Papayoanou as Lucy’s nerdy fiancé and realtor Jonathan Harker has an amorous brush with The Count, and is suddenly transformed from dud to stud, gyrating like a sexy little top in silver pants! An unseen but “heard” member of the ensemble must include McKenzie Adamick whose sound design perfectly punctuates every absurd moment.

This gothic crew find themselves gathered at Withering Manor, breaking the fourth wall while happily skewering whatever else is at the ready: misogyny, masculinity, the binary, therapy, Bronte — spilling only the blood necessary to make us scream out loud. I did. See DRACULA: A COMEDY OF TERRORS at The Mosesian Center for the Arts through November 1!

Amy Barker, Johnny Shea, Michelle Moran in BAT BOY:THE MUSICAL/ Photo: Jim Sabitus

BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL which opens the season at Umbrella Stage Company– is lodged in my brain. The production was so good, it overcame my distaste for the plot of this campy, over the top, horror-comedy-tragedy, Music/Lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe, book by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming: fanged boy discovered in a cave tries to assimilate in a creepy town after being taken in by the local veterinarian and his wife. How everyone reacts speaks volumes about what society suppresses and how it comes back to haunt us.

I was initially put off by the cruel goings-on ripped from the headlines of a 90’s tabloid. But Farley and Flemming have turned sensational fakery into potent truth. Then this 10-person ensemble gave it everything they’ve got– which was plenty. The score is a challenging Broadway-esque pastiche: pop, rock, country, hip hop, gospel– delivered by first rate vocalists, notably powerhouse Amy Barker as the veterinarian’s wife Meredith Parker; the clarion-voiced Michelle Moran as daughter Shelly Parker who falls for Bat Boy; and most of all the angelic sounds intoned by Johnny Shea as the warm-blooded human inside a Bat Boy’s body dueling with the beast in himself. Jeremy Johnson’s direction and pacing are spot-on as this musical builds, taking us into the woods, through a bestial coupling, and straight toward bloody retribution. It’s dark and urgent and even poignant making the case for just how hard but crucial it is to remain compassionate and civilized in a world which hasn’t figured out how to manage the unruly in all of us.

BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL at Umbrella Arts presented by Umbrella Stage Company is on through November 8 !

Anthony T. Goss, Deannah Dripp Blemur/ Benjamin Rose Photography

COVENANT by York Walker has kicked off the fall season at SpeakEasy Stage at the Calderwood Pavilion. A supernatural, southern gothic, psychological thriller, ghost story– it has too much going for it. Director Dawn M. Simmons manages the tone and an excellent cast, eery set, lighting, and sound–but a knotted plot chokes off the suspense and convolutes its own logic. I counted one jump scare. Set in 1936 rural Georgia, the play opens with a gossipy pronouncement by young Ruthie (Kayla Sessoms in her SpeakEasy debut) alone onstage, shrouded in darkness, announcing “Everybody’s got a secret.”

And how. For the next 90 minutes a maze of mystery draws us in, beginning with rumors around Johnny “Honeycomb” James who’s been spotted slinking around the cemetery. He’s returned home with a guitar and without his stutter to win the girl he’s always loved.  Has “Honeycomb” James made a sweet deal with the devil in exchange for his newfound musical gifts?  If so, maybe it’s Anthony T. Goss in the role who’s made the bargain.  Somehow, though the actor strums but two or three out of tune chords and sings off key–he’s bewitching in the part! Deanna Dripp Blemur in her SpeakEasy debut as his beloved Avery is equally charismatic. They run off together raising the hackles of Avery’s fanatical “Mama.” Crystin Gilmore’s frightening religious fervor in the role shakes us up like an exorcism. Mama’s devotion to daughter Avery and her simultaneous abuse of her other daughter Violet (a strong Sydney Alicia Jackson) beg for an explanation.

Hints creep in: family secrets and generational trauma cloaked in perverse piety and faustian myth flood the zone. There’s enough material here for three plays: religion, faith, family, superstition, guilt, music, folklore, sex, life, death, friendship, and the devil. Walker’s sprawling plot touches on all but settles on none. Then a final twist seems to undercut what has just been revealed. I can’t say more without revealing some skeletons in the many closets– one of which comes out of left field. I left confused and wanting. COVENANT presented by SpeakEasy Stage at the CALDERWOOD PAVILION runs through 10/17!