Whether you’re looking to be spooked or scream with laughter, theaters around the city are staging special productions for Halloween.
Don’t let the title fool you, Sleepy Hollow the Musical is not a lighthearted romp through Washington Irving’s classic horror story. Two lovers taunt the wrong man in the woods, where people have been known to go mad, becoming caught up in a mystical love triangle and trying to escape not just with their heads, but their souls. $30-$60, Through Nov. 7, Players Theatre, 115 MacDougal St. This year, Timothy Haskell isn’t opening Nightmare, one of the city’s most notorious haunted houses. Instead, he is “returning to my roots as a theater director in an attempt to create honest-to-goodness scary theater.” The result isNightmare: Horror Show,a festival of seven hair-raising plays ranging from an ordinary office worker who befriends a crow to a woman who may be mentally ill — or actually being haunted. $25-$30, Through Oct. 31, The Clemente, 107 Suffolk St. “Yotsuya Ghost Tales” is a classic Japanese kabuki play, but this production has been fused with “Macbeth” to become Ghost Light: The Haunting, about a successful actress who returns from the dead seeking vengeance against her showbiz husband after “the Scottish play” puts them at odds. $18, Oct. 23-Nov. 8, TBG Theatre, 312 W. 36th St. A skeleton has been found at a hotel, and it’s up to visitors to figure out who the victim was, how they died and who killed them. Search for clues by candlelight to test your Sherlock Holmes skills or team up with other guests to solve the Halloween Murder Mystery. $25, Oct. 23-24, Mount Vernon Hotel Museum, 421 E. 61st St. Great horror films are about more than quick scares, buckets of blood and an eerie soundtrack. They can’t be improvised — or can they? On the night before Halloween, Gypsy Danger will create a one-hour production that they promise will have you “screaming… with laughter!” $10, Oct. 30, The Striker, 123 E. 24th St. The Wes Anderson Players think all of Hollywood could use the quirky director’s touch, and they’ve been remaking pop cultural hits like “When Harry Met Sally” and “Jurassic Park” in his style. (The productions run only 40 minutes, so there’s at least one way they’re not like the director). This Halloween, they’re taking on the already campy classic Hocus Pocus. $10, Oct. 31, The Striker, 123 E, 24th St. The fairy tale of two children who very nearly get eaten by a witch living in a gingerbread house didn’t exactly need a spooky take, but the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre created one anyway. Don’t worry though, the monsters in Hansel and Gretel’s Halloween Adventure are the adorable kind as the kids dream about meeting mermaids, pirates, vampires and more — all in Central Park. $10 adults, $7 kids, through Oct. 31, 79th Street at West Drive Billed as a cross between Sweeney Todd and The Nightmare Before Christmas, Fatty Fatty No Friends is a horror operetta about a kid named Tommy who’s bullied past the point of no return — and finds a unique way to get revenge. $30, through Nov. 22, Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m., Celebration of Whimsy, 21 Clinton St. —T. Michelle Murphy Based on a true story and the legend of Sweeney Todd,Empanada Loca follows an ex-con with a rough past who does what she must to survive, deep underground in a subway tunnel. Daphne Rubin-Vega stars in this one-woman show, which is offering an all-lottery free performance on Halloween at 10 p.m. $30-$40, through Nov. 8, Bank Street Theater, 155 Bank St . —T. Michelle Murphy
These Halloween-themed plays will make you scream (and laugh)
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