BEST BETS Friday 8/31

11 am

Dance

More than 3,500 dance students auditioned this fall in 23 cities around the country for 700 openings in American Ballet Theatre’s Summer Intensive Programs. The Orange County Performing Arts Center and UC Irvine are satellite sites for the program. Other cities include New York; Detroit; Austin, Texas; and Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

The Orange County program, which began Aug. 6, culminates in two public performances today. Nearly 130 students, ages 12 to 19, will dance excerpts from classic ballets as well as contemporary works created for them or for other young dancers. This is a chance to see emerging artists, some of whom may move on to join ABT or other major companies.* Students of the American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensive Program will dance excerpts from “Swan Lake” and other ballets plus contemporary works Friday at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive. $12. (949) 854-4646.

8pm

Theater

When it comes to romantic entanglements, should the younger generation follow in its forebears’ footsteps or prudently avoid making the same mistakes? That’s the issue in “The Circle,” W. Somerset Maugham’s 1921 drawing room comedy about upper-crust English folk who must choose whether to live comfortable lives of good sense or adventurous ones of romantic sensibility. Three highly credentialed stage actors--Tony winner Carole Shelley and Tony nominees William “Biff” McGuire and Paxton Whitehead--portray the older generation in this intergenerational play. Shelley and McGuire are the romantics who sacrificed their social standing for love and wonder whether it was worth it. Whitehead plays a sardonic and witty partisan of conventional mores.* “The Circle,” South Coast Repertory’s Mainstage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7:30 p.m., matinees Saturdays and Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Previews begin Friday; regular performances start Sept. 7. $19-$52, with pay-what-you-will matinee Sept. 8. Ends Oct. 7. (714) 708-5555.

8pm

Theater

Costa Mesa playwright Stephen Ludwig explored the uneasy intersection of artistic and romantic passion in his full-length play, “Accidental Dancers,” staged last year at the Long Beach Playhouse. Now comes “No More Angels,” an evening of six short plays and monologues that include romantic encounters between the lonely, the reunion of an estranged father and son, the acerbic last testament of a killer and a fantastical, portent-filled riff on W.B. Yeats’ scary poetical vision of a rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem to be born.* “No More Angels,” Rude Guerrilla Theater Company’s Empire Theater, 200 N. Broadway, Santa Ana. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Also, Thurs., Sept. 13, 8 p.m. Ends Sept. 16. $12-$15. (714) 547-4688.

6pm

Art

The encaustic paintings of Mexican artist Laura Quintanilla, made of wax and mixed media on canvas and wood, show a mythological human figure as a central theme. Quintanilla melds images of memory and fantasy in her exhibit “The Recurring Dream” at the Boudreau-Ruiz Gallery in Newport Beach.* “The Recurring Dream,” Boudreau-Ruiz Gallery, 3000 Newport Blvd., Newport Beach. Daily, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Artist reception Friday, 6-9 p.m. Ends Oct. 21. (949) 675-4766.