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:
- A Dublin Carol, Steppenwolf Theater, 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 Theater 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-nominated 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 Theater 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 Theater, 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 Theater 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 Houses 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.
