Frightfully good Classics, some interesting duos, and a grab-bag of the dark and tingly BY MEGAN GRUMBLING

Since Halloween is one of the season’s most bewitching consolations, let me get ahead of myself right away. At the top of the holiday’s list is the year-old company Running Over Productions, which I’m delighted to report is back with what looks to be a fabulous Creature Double Feature. Staged once more at the creepy/urban-pastoral Presumpscot Grange Hall, Running Over’s show will consist of two one-acts, home-grown adaptations of the classic horror flicks Maniac and The Brain that Wouldn’t Die (October 21-November 5; call 207.653.8898). These guys have a history of great gory prostheses and a fine sense of our craving for the B-grade; I look forward to seeing what they’ll do with severed heads.

Easier on the stomach but not, hopefully, the nerves, are a couple of thrillers slated for the week of Halloween. Up at the Freeport Community Library, the Freeport Community Players will present a reading of the classic radio play Sorry, Wrong Number on October 27 (call 207.865.2220). And over in Lewiston, the Public Theater mounts Broadway’s longest-running comic thriller, Death Trap (October 14-23; call 207.782.2211). Written by the author of The Stepford Wives, this popular suspense tale shows what happens when a has-been murder-mystery writer decides to steal another man’s script.

Continuing along these particularly literary lines of the frightening, I’m pleased to recommend the Halloween offering of Acorn’s Naked Shakespeare Ensemble. On October 26, iambs will fill the SPACE Gallery as Michaels Levine and Howard direct "Supernatural Scenes," a culling of the Bard’s most chilling verse. Other stripped-down productions from Naked Shakespeare this fall include their continuing Meritage gig, the third Tuesday of each month, and a shortened, reader’s theater presentation of The Tempest, at the St. Lawrence, that will focus on the story of the earthy creature Caliban (November 21; call 207.766.3386).

Reader’s theater will also be the mode of USM’s season opener, The Good, the Bad, and the Wilde (September 30-October 9; call 207.780.5151). Conceived and directed by USM theater professor Walter Stump, this eight-actor ensemble work will present some literary classics of the American and English canons. Among the poems and stories dramatized will be Robert Service’s poem "The Cremation of Sam McGee," O. Henry’s comic short story "The Ransom of Red Chief," and Oscar Wilde’s "The Selfish Goat."

Opening Portland Stage Company’s season will be the comedy Lettice and Lovage (September 27-October 23; call 207.774.0465). Lettice Douffet is a whimsical tour guide who refuses to accept the duller points of life. When she gets in trouble for embellishing the truths of her boring tour location, her joie de vivre proves infectious to her supervisor, and a quirky friendship surges.

A rather less amiable camaraderie exists between the two lady chums of Boston Marriage, a modern period classic by David Mamet, which Mad Horse will put up October 6-30 (call 207.730.2389). Claire and Anna are rancorous Victorian lovers who spar in a style somewhere between Beckett’s Gogo and Didi and Albee’s George and Martha. It’s a sharp, verbal, and extremely challenging script, and to watch Mad Horse’s talented company at work with such meaty stuff should be an ambrosial theater-going venture.

If Boston Marriage wakes your Mamet appetite, you might also like to take a jaunt to Portsmouth for his American Buffalo. This tragic story of a distorted vision of the American dream will be produced by JOE Productions, at the Players’ Ring (October 14-30; call 603.436.8123). Appearing at the Ring shortly after that at will be another fraught production called Blackbird, produced by Rolling Die Productions. Set in a rented room on Canal Street in New York City, this play presents the unlikely love story of Desert Storm vet Baylis and teen heroin-addict Froggy (November 3-13).

Just across town, the West End Studio Theatre will put up a theatrical work especially for all the New England social history junkies out there. Dearly Earned, a creation of Marguerite Matthews and Greg Gathers (who recently staged the remarkable historical treatment The Peace of Portsmouth), looks at the lives the 19th-century textile mill workers who once made up much of Portsmouth’s community. Scripted from the workers’ own letters and diaries, Dearly Earned is a collage of reflections on early industry in New England (October 28-November 6; call 603.436.6660).

Another Portsmouth company will look back to a slightly earlier American era, when Seacoast Rep mounts a stage version of Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird (October 28-November 27; call 603.433.4372). This company does consistently fine work in an excellent venue, and their production of this classic treatise on the American social conscience should be a highlight of the season.

Stepping across the swim into the realm of the British social classic, we have Dickens’ Great Expectations. The saga of poor young Pip’s rise into society via the funds of the kooky, jilted Miss Havisham is onstage at Sanford Maine Stage Company (October 21-30; call 207.324.9691).

The poor young protagonist of The Cripple of Inishmaan, the American Irish Repertory Ensemble’s fall production, also has some high hopes — but he puts his in Hollywood. When a documentary film crew comes to the Aran Islands of Ireland, in 1934, crippled Billy Claven may or may not be wise to seek salvation through being in the movie. AIRE, which is a fine recent addition to Portland’s theater community, performs this black comedy in the Studio Theater of the Portland Performance Arts Center (November 3-20; call 207.799.5327).

There’s always something for the kids at the Children’s Theater of Maine, of course, but parents too might get a kick out of remembering Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing. The adaptation of the Judy Blume book tells of Peter Hatcher’s pain-in-the-neck little brother Fudge, who wreaks havoc on, among other important things, Peter’s turtle Dribble (October 7-30; call 207.828.0617).

Peter and Fudge make quite a dramatic pair, and here are two more fall picks with poignant theatrical couplings: The impressive new company Good Theater will put on Visiting Mr. Green, a story of a young man visiting an elderly one, and the mutual secrets revealed (September 22-October 16; call 207.885.5883). Finally, up in Hallowell the Gaslight will offer Arsenic and Old Lace (November 3-12; call 207.626.3698), in which two old biddies take mercy on lonely men by snuffing them.

This dark comedy also features a manic theater critic; come autumn, really, is there any other kind?

Megan Grumbling can be reached at mgrumbling@hotmail.com