CheekyChicago

We know that fall means an onslaught of new entertainment, as theater seasons begin, TV reboots and gritty Oscar-contender movies replace summer blockbusters. The other great thing about fall is that it’s macabre. With Halloween in the air, not to mention that earlier sunset and the wind rustling through dry leaves, it’s easy to get in the mood for something scary – or at least creepy and cooky.

So here’s a look at two upcoming shows with a flair for the dark side. They couldn’t be more contrasting, but they’re both definitively Chicago. The Hyprocrites’ Frankenstein places one of our city’s most respected off-loop theater companies in one of its greatest museums. And The Addams Family offers that time-honored Chicago tradition of catching a major new musical before it hits New York.

Frankenstein (The Hypocrites at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 East Chicago Avenue, October 21 – November 1, $20). This new adaptation by Hyprocrites artistic director Sean Graney combines elements from Mary Shelley’s novel, the 1931 Boris Karlof movie, and classic tragedies like Macbeth, Dr. Faustus and Prometheus Bound. The multimedia show uses four actors and plays promenade style, which means the performers move around the space as the audience follows. One can just imagine roaming around the MCA after-hours as the horror unfolds.

The Addams Family (Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre, 24 W. Randolph Street, November 13 – January 10, $28-$105). Sure, nothing sounds further from the above experimental work than a Broadway-bound musical written by the Jersey Boys team and starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth. But let’s remember that The Addams Family draws on some pretty goth (and altogether ooky) material too. This production scores cred for adapting the original Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoons instead of simply rehashing the TV show or movie. The show’s Web site even uses the New Yorker font and format, as if to assure us.

So whether you’re into the daring museum experience or the star-studded Broadway preview, if you’re into the spooky stuff you’ve got some fall theater dates to save.