These ghosts, witches, and monsters love to wreak havoc on stage.
Alex Brightman in BeetlejuiceMatthew Murphy
As Halloween approaches, it’s time to celebrate our fictional favorites who love to wreak havoc on stage. Whether they are riding snakes into houses, brewing potions, or invading bodies, they are some of theatre's creepiest characters.
From Beetlejuice to Albus Potter and the Weird Sisters of Macbeth to The Exorcist, check out our gallery of ghosts, witches, and monsters who terrify (and delight) audiences.
19 Fiendish Stage Characters Who Definitely Love Halloween
19 Fiendish Stage Characters Who Definitely Love Halloween
19 PHOTOS
Beetlejuice, the pranking poltergeist played by Tony-nominated Alex Brightman, rides a two-headed snake onto Broadway.
Matthew Murphy
Leslie Kritzer co-stars in Beetlejuice as Delia, but makes an Act 2 appearance as Miss Argentina, the late beauty queen stuck in the underworld.
Matthew Murphy
Jennifer Saunders plays the clairvoyant Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit opposite Emma Naomi as Elvira, a ghost come back to haunt (and taunt) her husband. The show was revived in the West End in 2020. Angela Lansbury won a Tony for playing Madame Arcati in 2009 on Broadway.
Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors is a flesh and blood-eating fauna intent on world domination. Jonathan Groff recently starred as Seymour in an Off-Broadway revival at the Westside Theatre.
Emilio Madrid-Kuser
“I am thy father’s spirit; / Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,” says King Hamlet, the ghostly specter who visits the Prince in his time of need. Pictured here is Michael Urie as Hamlet and Keith Baxter as his murdered father in the 2018 Shakespeare Theatre Company production.
Scott Suchman
Bernadette Peters originated the role of The Witch in Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods. Bitter and cursed, the enchantress transforms at the end of Act 1 into a beautiful conjurer after drinking a magical potion made from Cinderella’s slipper, Little Red’s cape, and corn silk.
Martha Swope/New York Public Library
“Double, double, toil and trouble, / Fire burn and cauldron bubble.” The three witches of Macbeth are some of the most terrifying characters in theatre with their invisible puppet strings directing the fates of nearly every character. Here, Charlie Cameron, Laura Elsworthy, and Anjana Vasan star as the prophetic heretics in Kenneth Branagh’s Park Armory production of The Bard’s darkest play.
The opening number of The Addams Family, “When You’re An Addams,” features long-dead ancestors rising from the grave to sing along. The original Broadway production starred (from left to right): Adam Riegler, Jackie Hoffman, Bebe Neuwirth, Nathan Lane, Kevin Chamberlin, Krysta Rodriguez, and Zachary James.
Joan Marcus
Nicola Hughes as the Ghost of Christmas Past takes Stephen Tompkinson as Ebenezer Scrooge on a stroll down memory lane in Jack Thorne’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Charles Dickens’ tale of greed and redemption transferred to Broadway in 2019.
Courtesy of The Old Vic
Successful and hopeful presidential killers are the stars in Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins. The final scene has the murderous crew appear as ghosts to Lee Harvey Oswald, played by Neil Patrick Harris in the 2004 Broadway production and seen kneeling in this photo. Pictured (L-R) is Alexander Gemignani as John Hinckley, Jr., Jeffrey Kuhn as Giuseppe Zangara, Mary Catherine Garrison as Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, Tony winner Denis O’Hare as Charles Guiteau, Tony winner Michael Cerveris as John Wilkes Booth, James Stacy Barbour as Leon Czolgosz, Becky Ann Baker as Sara Jane Moore, and Mario Cantone as Samuel Byck.
Joan Marcus
