Film: By a quirk of release patterns, you can now see two recent films starring Naomi Watts on area theater screens. The two roles she plays in Diana and Sunlight Jr. are a real display of her acting range, portraying two vastly different women separated by an ocean and by the gulf of their financial circumstances. Diana is, of course, about Princess Diana, and her love affair with a Pakistani surgeon which occurs soon after she leaves Prince Charles. The film is rather soap opera-ish, but Watts is magnetic as the most famous woman of her age. In Sunlight Jr., a smaller, better film, she plays a poor Florida convenience store clerk, eking out a living with her paraplegic boyfriend (Matt Dillon). As they are about to be evicted from their shabby motel room, the last thing she wants to hear is that she is pregnant.
Theater: In the late ’70s, composer Marvin Hamlisch was involved personally and professionally with lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, an unlikely romance that they chronicled in the musical They’re Playing Our Song. Their fictional personas are the only two characters in the show, but, in a nice touch, they each have a trio of back-up singers in their heads and on stage. The script by Neil Simon is little more than a string of one-liners, but undeniably funny. And at the Boca Raton Theatre Guild, director Keith Garsson’s quirky casting of Oscar Cheda and Margot Moreland pays off as they male us care about these two people and sing the heck out of the score. Through Nov. 24. Call (561) 347-3948.
Music: The symphonic season is beginning to hit its seasonal stride, with the various area orchestras opening their winter programs over the next few weeks. Tonight in Delray Beach, it’s the turn of the South Florida Symphony, which welcomes cellist Clancy Newman to the Crest Theatre for a performance of the unaccountably neglected Cello Concerto of Samuel Barber. Conductor Sebrina Maria Alfonso also conducts the Introduction and Allegro of Edward Elgar and the great Ninth Symphony of Schubert. 7:30 p.m., tickets are $35-$75. Call 954-522-8445 or visit www.southfloridasymphony.org.