Theater: Finally, some good news. The Kravis Center and the stagehands’ union have come to an agreement which will allow the remainder of the three-week run of Jersey Boys to proceed, after four performances had been canceled. The long-running Tony-winning musical biography tells the surprisingly involving story of the rise to fame of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and their eventual dissolution. And of course there are those ear-worm pop hits such as Sherry, Walk Like a Man and Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You. Continuing through Sunday, Jan. 6. Call (561) 832-7469 for tickets.
Film: Considering the many macabre thrillers that Alfred Hitchcock made during his career, wouldn’t you be disappointed to learn he was a perfectly well-adjusted individual? Fear not: all of the great filmmaker’s personal quirks and obsessions are on view in an entertaining little movie called simply Hitchcock, about the man and his struggle to make the 1960 hit Psycho, which the studio executives were, pardon the expression, dead set against. It may take some time getting used to Anthony Hopkins in padding and a lot of jowly make-up in the title role, but the moment you see James D’Arcy as Tony Perkins you will audibly gasp over the resemblance. Still, the move belongs to Helen Mirren as Hitchcock’s wife and helpmate, Alma. Playing at area theaters.
Music: There are some things that are always going to be associated with Christmas, no matter what their origins, and Messiah, the oratorio by Georg Friedrich Händel, as he was known before decamping to England and de-umlautting, is surely one of them. There have been numerous performances of the 1742 Easter oratorio in South Florida already this season, and this weekend, Seraphic Fire finishes them up with a return to its roots with concerts at churches rather than the big concert venues where it performed the work a couple seasons back. Last night, the choir was at St. Gregory’s in Boca Raton; tonight at 8, the group is at First United Methodist in Coral Gables, and at 4 p.m. Sunday, it’s All Saints Episcopal in Fort Lauderdale. Patrick Dupré Quigley directs the voices and the Firebird Chamber Orchestra. Tickets are $65; call 305-285-9060 or visit www.seraphicfire.org.
Opera: If you’re willing to travel a little bit, Orchestra Miami begins tonight what it hopes will be a regular tradition of mounting Amahl and the Night Visitors, Gian Carlo Menotti’s 1951 opera for television about the visit of the Magi to a poverty-stricken hut on the road to Bethlehem. Elaine Rinaldi’s company is doing this beautiful little opera tonight and twice on Jan. 6, when one of its performances will be in Spanish. Graham Fandrei, a well-known baritone here in Palm Beach County, sings Melchior for two of the performances, which stars 13-year-old Alexander Segarra as Amahl and Jouvanca Jean-Baptiste as his mother. The performance tonight at 8 is at Miami Shores Presbyterian Church and the two Jan. 6 performances are at Teatro Trail in Coral Gables. Tickets range from $25-$40; visit orchestramiami.org or call 800-838-3006 (tonight) or 305-443-1009 (Jan. 6).
Dance: A public radio broadcast the other day pointed out that Tchaikovsky’s ballet score for The Nutcracker is far more popular in North America than it is in most other places, and there’s surely a study in there somewhere about the popularity of late Romantic Russian culture in 20th– and 21st-century America. Be that as it may, ballet companies find it just about impossible to get through the Christmas season without pressure to mount this story of a magical Christmas party. Miami City Ballet presents the George Balanchine version, which draws lovingly on the ballet’s traditional stagings; after a weekend at Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center, the company is performing the ballet through Christmas Eve at the Ziff Ballet Opera House at the Arsht Center in downtown Miami. See it at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. today, 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Sunday, or 1 p.m. Monday. Tickets range from $20-$74; call 305-929-7010 or visit www.miamicityballet.org.