“The Rocky Horror Show,” which has become a popular Halloween offering for theaters, will make a November appearance in the Mahoning Valley this year.

The musical, which is being co-directed by Brooke Nobbs and Jude Mikulich, is being presented by the Oakland Center for the Arts and the Youngstown Playhouse on the Playhouse’s main stage for four performances Nov. 7 to 10.

“I’ve acted on the Youngstown Playhouse stage,” Nobbs said. “A lot of our cast has acted on the Youngstown Playhouse stage before, but to do ‘Rocky Horror’ for its first time ever being at the Playhouse in 100 seasons, that feels really special to us.”

Nobbs and Mikulich first collaborated on a production of “Clue” last year at the Collingwood Center in Campbell and wanted to do “Rocky Horror” because so many people they know love the show. While it’s never been done at the Playhouse, several other area theaters have staged it, and Rust Belt Theater Company’s spoof of the show, “The Rockin’ Horribles,” opens the same weekend at Club Switch.

They reached out to Brendan Byers, who now runs the Oakland, and he was interested in working with them. The Oakland is between performance spaces, though, so Byers contacted Leslie Brown, who serves on the Playhouse board, about doing it there.

Byers, if anything, is more excited about the collaboration with the Playhouse than Nobbs is.

“This is where I fell in love with the theater,” Byers said. “This is where I met (Oakland Center for the Arts founder) Sandy Vansuch. She was working here, and her first main stage production, she cast me in it.”

She encouraged then-director Bentley Lenhoff to allow her to stage “The Shadow Box” in Playhouse’s arena stage in the early 1980s, Byers said, and her desire to do more shows like that inspired the creation of the Oakland.

“The Oakland wouldn’t be the Oakland without the Playhouse,” he said.

With “Clue” and also “Rocky Horror,” Nobb said one of their primary concerns was to create a safe, comfortable environment for the performers. That was especially important for the Richard O’Brien musical, which deals frankly with sexuality.

“We are really big on the safety and the comfortability of our cast members,” Nobbs said. “We asked cast members from ‘Clue’ we already knew and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to be doing Rocky Horror. We know you would be a great fit for this role. Would you like to join and be on board with us?'”

With those they hadn’t worked with before, they vetted them with performers they knew who had.

In addition to Nobbs and Mikulich, the cast includes Elena Loedding, Kage Jonas Coven, Mia G, Peter Sherman, Carolyn Colley, Jack Rusk, Kathryn Stanton, Sam Mentzer, Kailey Meehan, Logan Stafford, Kenna VanZandt, Corey Hughes, Melisa Trickett, David Leach, Gabriel Kremm and Allyson Kremm.

The stage musical was adapted to the screen as “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” and multiple generations have sung along with the cult favorite, both repeating the dialogue or the alternate audience commentary, often while dressed like one of the characters.

That kind of devotion brings with it certain audience expectations, and directors must decide how much or how little they want to stray from what audiences already love about the show.

“We’re trying to walk that line of making sure that we live up to the expectations of ‘The Rocky Horror Show,’ like we’re nodding to the movie quite a lot, not just the costuming, but in some of the acting choices in the set design and all that stuff,” Nobbs said. “But we’re also spinning our own thing. I feel like we were heavily inspired by the 2001 revival version of the show, which feels more like a punk rock concert. There are a lot of punk elements to the show, especially in the costuming.

“We’re not doing a carbon copy of the film, because why pay for that when you watch it at home or go to a shadow cast? You want to present the audience something new and exciting while also being close enough that they feel like they have that familiarity, so it’s been a tough line to walk, but I think we’re doing a pretty good job of it.”

If you go …

WHAT: “The Rocky Horror Show”

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 7 to 10

WHERE: Youngstown Playhouse, 600 Playhouse Lane, Youngstown

HOW MUCH: Tickets range from $17 to $27 and are available online at experienceyourarts.org and by calling 330-259-9651