Spotlight on seasonal shows: Improv Playhouse revives ‘Dracula’ as classic radio drama

Dark shadows

The Improv Playhouse delivers seasonal chills in the guise of a staged radio version of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” adapted from Orson Welles’ July 1938 inaugural broadcast of The Mercury Theatre on the Air. Founder and executive producer David Brian Stuart directs the 1930s-style radio drama. “Dracula is almost ideally suited to radio theater because Stoker’s story already lives through voices, journals, letters, eyewitness accounts and fragments of information that slowly reveal what is happening,” Stuart said in a prepared statement. “Rather than showing an audience everything, we give them the sounds, the voices and the atmosphere and allow their imaginations to complete the picture.”

Friday, Oct. 16, through Oct. 30, at 130 N. Milwaukee Ave., Libertyville. $12.50-$18.50. 847-968-4529 or improvplayhouse.com.

August Wilson revival

James Lewis stars as the titular King, an ex-convict trying to rebuild his life in City Lit Theater Company’s revival of August Wilson’s “King Hedley II,” the 1985 drama from the playwright’s Century Cycle chronicling the Black experience in America during each decade of the 20th century. Artistic associate Manny Buckley helms the production, which features Isis Elizabeth as King’s wife, Tonya, and Andrea Conway-Diaz as his mother, Ruby.

Friday, Oct. 16, through Nov. 29, at the Edgewater Presbyterian Church, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., Chicago. $32, $40. 773-293-3682 or citylit.org.

Seasonal sketches for grown-ups

Corn Productions remounts its adults-only production, “Death Toll: The Halloween Drinking Game Sketch Show,” which requires audience members to drink each time a character dies.

Sunday, Oct. 18, through Oct. 31, at 4210 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago. $15, $20. cornservatory.org/deathtoll.

World premieres

• Willie Round’s experience growing up in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood inspired “Mud Life,” the play he co-authored with fellow Collaboraction artistic associate G. Riley Mills (the duo also penned the award-winning “The Lost Story of Emmett Till: Trial in the Delta”). The action unfolds in a rundown West Side recording studio where a pair of aspiring hip-hop artists hope music will help them escape poverty. Artistic director Anthony Moseley directs Collaboraction’s premiere, which stars Round and DeMorris Burrows as best friends Roc and Tae.

Wednesday, Oct. 21, through Nov. 15, at 1757 N. Kimball Ave., Chicago. $15-$50. collaboraction.org.

• Red Theater premieres “Church Hurt,” Brynne Frauenhoffer’s play about three former church youth group besties who reunite after many years and grapple with old wounds, new perspectives and differing faith journeys. Alice Wu, Sara Sadjadi and Laura Michele Erle star in director Jessica Love’s production.

Wednesday, Oct. 21, through Nov. 21, at The Edge Off Broadway, 1133 W. Catalpa Ave., Chicago. $35. redtheater.org.

• Babes With Blades concludes its season with William Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” starring Lynne Baker as the titular monarch, who disastrously divides his kingdom into thirds for his daughters, sparking bloodshed, betrayal and madness. “I am thrilled that Babes are sinking their teeth into one of Shakespere’s most complex tragedies,” artistic director Hayley Rice said in a prepared statement. “Like so much of Shakespeare’s work, these themes are still painfully relevant today including greed, lust for power, the shortsightedness of our leaders and familial strife.” Alison Dornheggen directs the production, which features combat choreography by Jess Pennachio.

Through Nov. 21 at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago. $28, $37. 773-975-8150 or BabesWithBlades.org.

Writers stages battle royale

American boxer Jack Johnson — the country’s first Black heavyweight champion whose 1910 bout against white opponent James J. Jeffries was dubbed the “fight of the century” — inspired Marco Ramirez’s boxing drama “The Royale.” Tyrone Phillips directs Writers Theatre’s revival set in 1905 and centered on Jay, a Black boxer dubbed “The Sport,” whose shot at the title comes with staggeringly high stakes. “As Jay’s obstacles grow, so does his determination, his pride, his discipline and the costs to the people who love him,” artistic director Braden Abraham said in a prepared statement in which he described the play as “built from a piece of American history too often left out of the story.”

Thursday, Oct. 22, through Nov. 29, at 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe. Tickets start at $35. 847-242-6000 or writerstheatre.org.

bvitello@dailyherald.com