Tom Hall

Sarasota Ballet’s season opener features the choreography of Gemma Bond, Sir Frederick Ashton and Dominic Walsh. It is the first of seven programs Sarasota Ballet will perform this year. The Ballet’s 20th season includes 16 ballets, including eight Company premieres such as Gemma Bond’s “Manner.”

“The Rivals” is touted as one of the funniest plays ever written. TheatreConspiracy and the Laboratory Theater are collaborating to perform an abbreviated adaptation of the comedy of manners Nov. 13-29.

“Radium Girls” closes this weekend at Cultural Park Theatre in Cape Coral. It’s based on the bestselling 2017 book “Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women,” by Kate Moore. It is powerful, poignant, well-constructed and well-acted. It is an indictment of sensationalistic journalism, a public that values jobs over safety, and corporations that hide behind high-priced lawyers and misleading marketing and publicity campaigns to cover up risks to their workers and the public. It is the type of theater that will not just make you think. It will leave a nasty emotional scar.

Gulf Coast Jazz Collective celebrates the music of Chick Correa tonight. A wizard of melody and improvisation, Corea was equally at home in a quiet acoustic trio or at the forefront of the jazz fusion revolution. He is one of the most nominated artists in the history of the Grammys, with 71 nominations and 27 wins.

On view through Nov. 5 at Venice Art Center is its fall members show. The exhibition consists of 97 works of art in oil, acrylics, watercolor, pencil, pen, charcoal, pastels, mixed media and photography to pottery, ceramics, clay, fused glass, mosaics, stoneware and paper mache.

Art Center Sarasota is exhibiting a playful exhibition of drawings, prints and sculpture by Venezuelan American artist Jorge Blanco. The exhibition, “Joy in Motion,” is an ode to his colorful, uplifting minimalist sculptures, which dot public spaces throughout the United States, Venezuela, Europe and Japan – including three installations in Sarasota. Synthesizing geometry, movement and the human figure, Blanco endeavors to inspire optimism in those who encounter his public artworks. “Joy in Motion” is on display in the center gallery through Nov. 14.

Sarasota Cuban Ballet is presenting four performances of Dracula Oct. 30 through Nov. 1.

For those of a certain age, the ‘60s are remembered - fondly or not - as the age of political protest. But between anti-ICE and No Kings rallies, the ‘60s take a back seat to recent nationwide protests. Florida Rep Producing Artistic Director Greg Longenhagen believes it’s a good time to bring Neil Simon’s “Star-Spangled Girl” to the historic Arcade Theatre.

This week, five shows open, eight close, seven continue their runs and there is one limited engagement at Southwest Florida theaters.

From musicals to ballet, from improv to fright nights, this Halloween, six Southwest Florida shows offer something eerily novel.