Lake Avenue does the heavy lifting in Lake Worth Beach this week. The Playhouse closes its season opener and starts a new film run, the Cultural Council opens a new painter's show two blocks east, and anyone who goes big on Halloween has until Monday to enter the city's yard contest. Here is the week of Saturday, Oct. 17, to Friday, Oct. 23.

Saturday and Sunday: Falsettos closes

The Lake Worth Playhouse opened its 74th Main Stage season with Falsettos, the William Finn and James Lapine musical about Marvin and the unconventional family around him, played here with a live band. This is the last weekend: performances are Saturday at 2 and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at 713 Lake Ave. The Playhouse recommends it for ages 14 and up for its language and its treatment of HIV and AIDS, illness and death. Why go: once Sunday's matinee ends, it is gone. The box office is at (561) 586-6410.

Monday: get your yard in the contest

The city's Halloween Yard Decorating Contest is open to homes in the 33460 and 33461 zip codes, and the registration deadline is Monday, Oct. 19, per the city's recreation department. There are four categories: Haunted Harvest, Monster Mash, Scary Skeletons and Most Creative. Judges drive the city after dark on Oct. 26, and the winners are named at Little Scream on Oct. 30. Why go: you were going to put the skeletons up anyway.

Thursday: Bogdan Kravchenko opens on Lake Avenue

The Cultural Council for Palm Beach County opens a solo show of paintings by Bogdan Kravchenko with a free reception on Thursday, Oct. 22, from 5 to 7 p.m. in its Gayle and Paul Gross Gallery at 601 Lake Ave., and asks guests to RSVP. Kravchenko, born in Ukraine, trained in book graphics and illustration at the Kyiv Academy of Art before a career in advertising and design, and his abstract landscapes and still lifes are built from architectural shapes, according to the Cultural Council. The show runs through Dec. 5. Why go: an opening night on Lake Avenue is the easiest art party in the county, and it costs nothing.

Friday: Primetime starts its run

The Playhouse's film series picks up Primetime, Lance Oppenheim's 2026 drama about Chris Hansen, the host of To Catch a Predator, trying to make television history in 2006. It is rated R and runs an hour and 50 minutes. Screenings in the Stonzek Studio Theatre are Friday, Oct. 23, at 6 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 24, at 3 and 5:30 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 25, at 2 p.m., with a discussion after the Sunday show, per the Playhouse's film page. Tickets are $9 plus a $2 fee. Why go: a buzzy new release for nine dollars, a block from dinner downtown, beats the multiplex.

The short version

Catch Falsettos before Sunday, register the yard by Monday, toast a new painter on Thursday and stay downtown Friday for the movie. Lake Worth Beach's season of bonfires and street parties starts in two weeks; this is the quieter warm-up, and most of it is on one street.