Start practicing your evil laugh. Work with a vocal coach. Seriously. “If you’re going to get into the Evil League of Evil, you have to have a memorable laugh.” So says Dr. Horrible, the supervillain next door who’s more evil ambition than actual disaster from Joss Whedon’s musical web series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, starring Neil Patrick Harris. This month, Dr. H lands onstage at the Onyx Theatre courtesy of director Sirc Michaels, who’s been working with Whedon’s lawyers/agents/lackeys for around three years to secure the rights to adapt Dr. Horrible. “We were very careful about how we would present everything,” says Michaels. “It is essentially the story that you see on the screen.” For those who haven’t seen it, the series—created during the Writers Guild strike in 2008 and named one of the top inventions of that year by Time—follows the exploits of Dr. Horrible as he tries to join the Evil League of Evil, defeat his nemesis, Captain Hammer, and win the girl of his dreams. With a work-in-progress freeze ray, Bad Horse (and his terrifying whinny) and lots of spontaneous singing, the show seems to lend itself to theater, though audiences won’t have many chances to see it with live actors: The Whedons have stopped releasing the rights, according to Michaels, so after the run at the Onyx and a separate production at this year’s Comic-Con, Dr. Horrible may take his final bow.