The Golden Girls: The Lost Episodes Holiday Edition, Hell in a Handbag Productions at Mary’s Attic, through Jan. 10. Extend the holiday season just a bit longer with David Cerda’s hit parody of the beloved NBC sitcom. Laugh at all the drag, cuss words and contraband that wouldn’t have made it past the network censors. SCM

The Nutcracker, Joffrey Ballet at Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University, through Dec. 30. The music is passionately the same, but Christopher Wheeldon’s reconception is a social revolution and visual spectacular. The customary European rich girl is now an immigrant kid in 1893 World’s Fair Chicago. This dazzling Nutcracker celebrates Chicago and the Auditorium itself. JA

Puff: or Believe It or Not, Remy Bumppo Theatre Company at Greenhouse Theater, through Jan. 7, The “well-made” lay may have once been dismissed as formulaic, but this frothy madcap farce of high-society lovers and liars wholly redeems the genre. MSB

Violet, Griffin Theatre Company at Den Theatre, through Jan. 13. Jeanine Tesori’s florid musical score drives this odyssey of a deep-South pilgrim’s search for a miracle lurking in unexpected places. MSB

—By Abarbanel, Barnidge and Morgan