"Bat Boy: The Musical" returns to Massachusetts. Production blends horror and comedy.

Just in time for Halloween, "Bat Boy: The Musical" returns to Massachusetts. The production at the Umbrella Arts Center in Concord is a bit spooky and a bit silly.

Inspired by the supermarket tabloid stories published in the early 1990s, the show has a little bit of everything.

"Bat Boy is a really wild combination of Greek tragedy, extreme comedy, B-horror movie, all mixed up together," director Jeremy Johnson said.

"When playing these scenes and situations honestly, they will naturally be funny because the circumstances are perhaps absurd. You know, I'm playing a Bat Boy," explained Elliot Norton-winning actor Johnny Shea.

He portrays Edgar, the Bat Boy, who is discovered living in a cave, and told WBZ, "There's definitely some shock factor hopefully, some twists and turns that I think it's great to come in blind for."

"So, the goal is to kind of keep the audience always guessing about what is going to happen next," Johnson explained. "As soon as they think they know what kind of play they're in, we shift them in another direction and keep them on their toes all night long."

Johnson worked with the cast to make sure the mix of horror and comedy was just right.

He told WBZ, "I love the fact that you can generally frighten an audience and then quickly disarm them with a laugh right after that."

"We're really having a fun time exploring all of these different kooky characters within this town," said actor Maria Sylvia Norris.

She and other members of the ensemble play several roles and said, "We start as ourselves, sort of as storytellers, and then we morph into these characters. And we let the audience in on what we're doing right at the beginning. We get to go in and out of gender, in and out of age, in and out of character, and we let you see it all."

Shea added, "It's a really fun, funny show, but it also has some real poignancy and a message that I think resonates with a lot of people."

And there are things to be learned from a Bat Boy.        

"We really get to see that character go from this beast to humanoid creature and that's kind of the theme of the story," said Norris. "Finding the beast inside and what that kind of means to be a human."

Johnson told WBZ, "We have this big question about what is a monster, what makes a monster and is it necessarily the person that you thought in the first place? Not always."

You can check out "Bat Boy: The Musical" at the Umbrella Arts Center in Concord through Nov. 8.