Spooky season

The New York Theatre Sale ends Sunday 10/4
Sometimes you just need to get out of the house, especially when the house is the problem. James and Lou trade Chicago for a fresh start in a new London home, but Lou is certain something moved in before they did. The stage version of the horror franchise settles into the August Wilson and runs on real scares: sudden dark, loud noise, strictly no late seating. It's ages 15+, and it earns the rating.

The New York Theatre Sale ends Sunday 10/4
Jenny swears her new home is haunted. Her husband Sam isn't buying it. Over a housewarming dinner with friends, the debate curdles into a dare: they'll stay up until 2:22 in the morning to settle once and for all whether the dead can really walk. Sharp, genuinely funny, and quietly terrifying, it plays the Lucille Lortel and keeps you guessing right up until the clock hits.

The New York Theatre Sale ends Sunday 10/4
Hawkins, 1959, before the world turned upside down. A new kid named Henry Creel arrives in a quiet Indiana town, and the shadows he carries with him have a very long reach. This two-time Olivier winner is a stand-alone prequel to the Netflix series, built around stagecraft that genuinely stops the room. You don't need to know a single episode to feel the dread creep in at the Marquis.

The New York Theatre Sale ends Sunday 10/4
Michael moves to sun-bleached Santa Carla for a fresh start and falls in with David, the magnetic frontman of a local band who offer him freedom, belonging, and one very dark secret. Based on the cult 1987 vampire film, this rock musical was the most Tony-winning new musical of its year, trading the screen's fog for a live band and aerial stunts at the Palace. Vampire-themed and ages 10+.

The New York Theatre Sale ends Sunday 10/4
Give yourself over to absolute pleasure. Richard O'Brien's rock'n'roll cult ritual takes over Studio 54, a venue with its own decadent history, staged by Tony winner Sam Pinkleton as a full-tilt party. Expect "Time Warp," "Sweet Transvestite," fishnets, and a crowd that knows every callback by heart. Whether it's your first time or your fiftieth, it lands somewhere between a musical and a Saturday-night rite.

The New York Theatre Sale ends Sunday 10/4
A meek florist's assistant discovers a strange little plant with an appetite, and a taste for the theatrical. The world's most ravenous greenery is back for its long-running, sold-out revival at the Westside Theatre, still wildly funny and still a New York Times Critic's Pick. Doo-wop, a giant puppet, and a body count played for laughs: the gateway scare for anyone who likes their horror with a wink.

The New York Theatre Sale ends Sunday 10/4
Before Dorothy ever landed, there was a green-skinned girl written off as wicked by everyone who met her. This is the witch's origin story, spellcasting and flying monkeys included, wrapped around a friendship that curdles into rivalry. Two decades into its run at the Gershwin, it's the witchiest ticket on Broadway and the most kid-friendly scare on this list. Ages 8+.

The New York Theatre Sale ends Sunday 10/4
Nineteen years after the battle that saved the wizarding world, a new generation arrives at Hogwarts, and forces that were supposed to stay buried begin to stir. The draw is the stagecraft: spells, a race through time, and illusions that leave audiences audibly gasping. It's the darkest, most shiver-inducing corner of this world, staged at the Lyric with effects you'll be puzzling over for days. Ages 8+.

The New York Theatre Sale ends Sunday 10/4
Step inside The Phantom of the Opera, literally. This immersive staging of Andrew Lloyd Webber's most haunting love story moves an intimate group of sixty guests through the Paris Opera House, into the music, the mystery, and the shadow of the masked figure himself. Directed by Tony winner Diane Paulus, it swaps the proscenium for a night where the Phantom could be right over your shoulder. Ages 13+.

The New York Theatre Sale ends Sunday 10/4
This one comes with the two-drink minimum built into the plot. One actor takes five shots of whiskey, then attempts an epic retelling of Transylvania's thirstiest bachelor, and it goes exactly as sideways as you'd hope. From the team behind Drunk Shakespeare, it's ninety minutes of vampiric mayhem at the Ruby Theatre, with the audience helping decide how the night unravels. Ages 21+, for obvious reasons.

An actor turns up late to a sound studio for a last-minute audiobook gig and gets handed a chilling ghost story to narrate. As the night wears on, the horror starts slipping off the page and into the room with him. Fresh from a sold-out London run, this binaural "headphone horror" from a SIX creator pipes the haunting directly into your ears at Audible's intimate Minetta Lane, where there's nowhere to look away. Ages 13+.

The original woman scorned, and one of mythology's most chilling revenge stories. Betrayed by her husband, the sorceress Medea is driven to an act of vengeance too dark to spell out here. Cherubini's rarely staged opera puts diva Sonya Yoncheva at the center of the fury, in David McVicar's production at the Met. It opens the night before Halloween, which feels about right.

Two friends throw an elegant dinner party with one detail their guests don't know about: a dead body hidden in the trunk they're serving drinks on. Keeping a murder quiet turns out to be far harder than committing one, and the evening unravels from there. This new adaptation of the play that inspired Hitchcock's film is wickedly funny and deliciously dark, a world premiere at the Theatre at St. Clement's.