In its 26-year history, Miami City Ballet has performed regularly in three South Florida counties, across the United States and even abroad. But on Friday night, the troupe will appear in a single show that could match the impact of all those hundreds of performances for hundreds of thousands of people.

In its national television debut, on the PBS Arts Fall Festival, MCB could be seen by nearly a million people on a broadcast that spotlights a different aspect of Miami than fictitious serial killers and forensic investigators...