Dance: The holidays are upon us, and that means so is The Nutcracker. When the Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky finished the score for the ballet in 1891, it was as part of a double-bill with his one-act opera, Iolanta. Tchaikovsky didn’t much like what he’d written, but Tsar Alexander III, who came to a dress rehearsal for the first performance in December 1892, loved it, and since then public opinion has sided overwhelmingly with the tsar. There are at least five performances of this classic work of dance and its miraculous score between now and the end of the year, and two of them start today. The Florida Classical Ballet Theatre presents its annual production tonight (7:30 p.m.), Saturday (2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.) and Sunday (2 p.m.) at the Eissey Campus Theatre in Palm Beach Gardens (tickets: $15; call 207-5900 or visit www.fcbt.org), and in south county, the Boca Ballet Theatre presents its version, with Cassandra Trenary and Gray Davis of the American Ballet Theatre, at the Olympic Heights High School auditorium tonight at 7, at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday (tickets: $35, call 995-0709 or visit www.bocaballet.org).
Film: Fans of Alfred Hitchcock ― and what serious lover of movies is not enamored of the master of suspense? ― should thoroughly enjoy the amusing biographical flick Hitchcock, which chronicles the behind-the-scenes challenges of making one of his most successful films, Psycho. Today we look upon this cinematic tale of motelier Norman Bates and his mother love as a genre classic, but in 1959, the studio execs bridled at making a horror picture that they thought was beneath them and beneath the rotund Hitchcock. Anthony Hopkins is probably not an obvious choice to play the meticulous director, but he gets a good makeup job and the rest is pure channeling. It may take a while to adjust to him in the role, but James D’Arcy is a dead ringer for Tony Perkins from the moment we see him. Helen Mirren adds class to the proceedings as Hitch’s wife Alma, the power behind the director’s chair, and Scarlett Johansson will do as Janet Leigh, another blonde actress that Hitchcock becomes obsessed with. Opening at area theaters this weekend.
Theater: Welcome to the area the new Outré Theatre Company, a young troupe eager to shake up audiences with works not previously seen locally, produced in a style that shatters the fourth-wall separation between the performers and theatergoers. Typical of the group’s sensual, gritty approach is its opening selection, Andrew Lippa’s off-Broadway cult musical, The Wild Party, set in the 1920s jazz era, about a bathtub gin-swilling soiree and a pair of violence-prone vaudeville performers, based on a 1928 poem by John Moncure March. Outré’s artistic director Skye Whitcomb stages the show at the Mizner Park Cultural Arts Studio Theatre in Boca Raton, the company’s home turf until it can identify and afford its own playhouse. Opening today and running through Dec. 9. Call OvationTix at (866) 811-4111 for reservations.
Music: The Delray String Quartet opens its season tonight at All Saints Episcopal in Fort Lauderdale and Sunday afternoon at the Colony Hotel in Delray Beach with an unusual program of quartets and duets. The quartet is an old favorite – the Dvorak American (No. 12 in F, Op. 96), and the duets are by Beethoven (the Eyeglasses duo for viola and cello) and Prokofiev (the Sonata for Two Violins). There’s also an arrangement of Johann Strauss II’s overture to the operetta Die Fledermaus. 7:30 tonight in Fort Lauderdale, 4 p.m. Sunday in Delray. Tickets are $30 Friday and $35 Sunday. Call 213-4138 or visit www.delraystringquartet.com for more information.
Art: It’s a weekend of art in Delray Beach with the 13th Annual Downtown Delray Thanksgiving Weekend Art Festival, which this year is located at the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and 4th Avenue in downtown Delray, two blocks east of last year’s location. The festival, which runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, features original art and fine crafts from more than 100 artists and artisans. Jewelry, photography, paintings, glass works and mixed media art are among the items for sale. Admission is free. For more information, visit http://www.artfestival.com.