Theater: The theater event of the weekend is the debut of Parade Productions, a new company led by artistic director Kim St. Leon, which kicks off with Donald Margulies’ semi-autobiographical play Brooklyn Boy, at the Studio at Mizner Park, a flexible configuration playhouse on the site of the former International Museum of Cartoon Art. Jewish identity is often at the heart of Margulies’ work, and never more so than in the tale of Eric Weiss (played by area favorite Avi Hoffman), a struggling novelist trying to escape his roots, but who stumbles onto mainstream, best-selling success with a book about growing up Jewish in that flavorful New York borough. And just as he achieves public acclaim, his private life is crumbling into crisis. Serious stuff, but Margulies handles it with skill and not a little humor. Continuing through Feb. 12. Tickets are $30, available at www.paradeproductions.org.
Film: Ever since she starred off-Broadway in a singular play called The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs some 30 years ago, Glenn Close has been trying to get a film adaptation of it made. Not only has she succeeded at that — no little feat — but her performance in the title role has just earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination. Yes, Close plays Albert, an invention of her character’s, a woman in 19th-century Dublin at a time when job opportunities were few for women, and they certainly were not allowed to wait tables in the nicer hotels. So she disguises herself, and perhaps succeeds all too well at her gender and identity change, which becomes something of a trap for her. Close is terrific as this repressed little man, but the film is stolen out from under her by Janet McTeer — also Oscar-nominated — playing a house painter with his own similar secret. Opening today at several locations, including the Living Room Theaters in Boca Raton.
Dance: Liam Scarlett is the coming man in British dance, and he’s done a new work for the Miami City Ballet called Viscera. Set to the First Piano Concerto of the American composer Lowell Liebermann, the company describes it as passionate and “gut-wrenching.” Also on the program are In the Night, a Jerome Robbins ballet set to music by Chopin, and George Balanchine’s Ballet Imperial, a sumptuous evocation of Tchaikovsky. 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 1 p.m. Sunday at the Kravis Center. Tickets start at $19. Call 877-929-7010 (MCB), the Kravis Center at 832-7469 or visit www.miamicityballet.org.
Music: One of the most important pieces of contemporary classical music in the last quarter of the last century was surely the Symphony No. 1 of John Corigliano, a 1989 paean to the friends the composer lost and was losing to the AIDS crisis. Although AIDS itself has become more manageable with contemporary drug protocols, the symphony remains a searing document, and an effective one whatever the program. It’s also very difficult to play, and the students of the Lynn Philharmonia will have a real challenge ahead of them when Albert-George Schram leads them in the symphony Saturday night and Sunday afternoon at the Wold Center for the Performing Arts. Also on the program is John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine and the golden-hued Clarinet Concerto of Mozart (in A, K. 622), played by the veteran Jon Manasse. 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday; tickets: $35-$50. Call 237-9000 or visit www.lynn.edu/tickets.