“Out of the Question: Reviving the Lost Art of Provocative Conversation,” a five-part series of panels devoted to everything from our democracy to real estate to restaurants, will return to the Southampton Center next Thursday at 7 p.m. with “The Business of Art: Passion or Profit?”

Warren Strugatch, a writer, speaker, and business strategist, hosts the series. Next Thursday’s panel will include Eric Fischl and Toni Ross, artists, Rick Friedman, a former art fair mogul, and Vered, a gallerist.

Mr. Strugatch revived the series this year after a 12-year hiatus. He decided to bring the programs back after seeing the level to which conversation had deteriorated during the last presidential campaign.

Next week’s discussion is likely to be informative and spirited, as the two artists engage in a dialogue with two representative of art’s business side. Mr. Fischl, who lives on North Haven, is an internationally renowned painter, while Ms. Ross has exhibited her sculpture throughout the United States and abroad.

Mr. Friedman founded Hamptons Expo Group, which has held art fairs in Aspen, Houston, Palm Springs, and Bridgehampton. He sold his interest in the company in 2015. Vered founded her eponymous gallery in East Hamptons in the mid-1980s and took on a partner, Janet Lehr, eight years later. The gallery has since been renamed Janet Lehr Fine Art.

Civil audience participation will be welcomed, and a reception on the center’s East Lawn will follow the program to encourage additional conversation. Tickets are $15.

“Whale of a Show” in Sag

The Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum will present “Anchor: A Whale of a Show,” through June 12, with an opening reception tomorrow from 6 to 8 p.m.

Dan Rizzie and Susan Lazarus-Reiman have organized the annual exhibition, which is inspired by Sag Harbor’s maritime history. Included are the artists Paul Davis, Jameson Ellis, Eric Fischl, April Gornik, Laurie Lambrecht, Lindsay Morris, Christine Morro, Jill Musnicki, Reynold Ruffins, David Slater, Ned Smyth, Donald Sultan, John Torreano, Jodi Panas, Ms. Lazarus-Reiman, and Mr. Rizzie.

Miyatake and Celmins

At Drawing Room

The Drawing Room in East Hampton is showing alabaster sculpture by Aya Miyatake and selected prints by Vija Celmins from tomorrow through June 26.

Ms. Miyatake will present 10 sculptures carved over the last five years, each of which sits or lies on its base in an animated posture. Her work gives a natural and humble shape to the translucency of the alabaster.

Intense scrutiny of enduring subjects from the natural world characterizes the work of Ms. Celmins, typified by her “Night Sky” mezzotints and the engraving “Ocean,” which captures the essence of the sea in a fragment.

Elizabeth Huey

At Harper’s Books

“And Yet It Moves,” a solo show by the Los Angeles painter Elizabeth Huey, will open at Harper’s Books in East Hampton with a reception on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.

The exhibition, which continues through June 22, focuses on key historical figures and monumental events, but Ms. Huey’s are not conventional depictions. She draws imagery from her own photographs, magazine cutouts, film clips, literary fragments, and news clippings to create complex compositions.

Paintings on Glass

By Gabriele Raacke

Art Space 98 in East Hampton will reopen tomorrow for the summer season with “In Between,” a show of paintings on glass by the East Hampton artist Gabriele T. Raacke. The exhibition will run through July 3, with a reception on Friday, June 2, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Ms. Raacke’s work is informed by her childhood memories and her extensive travels. A witty surrealism results in such images as a monkey in a village square, a woman riding a giant rooster, or a clown and dancer flying paper airplanes.

Members Show at Ashawagh

The Springs Improvement Society will present its 33rd annual Members Art Show this weekend at Ashawagh Hall in Springs. An opening reception with wine and cheese will take place tomorrow from 5 to 8 p.m. The $5 admission charge will be applied toward maintenance of the hall.

The exhibition will be open Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Monday from 11 to 2.

Grant Haffner

At Roman Fine Art

“Mohawk Trail,” Grant Haffner’s first solo exhibition in 11 years, will open tomorrow at Roman Fine Art in East Hampton and remain on view through June 25. A reception will take place Saturday from 7 to 9 p.m.

A longtime presence on the East End art scene, Mr. Haffner moved to Massachusetts in 2016. For years he painted stark, empty Hamptons roads in day-glow colors and deep hard-edged perspective. His new work brings the same sensibility to the mountains and gorges of western Massachusetts.

Four Photographers

At Tulla Booth

The Tulla Booth Gallery in Sag Harbor will open “Spring Preview” with a reception Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m. The show will run through June 28 and include photographs by Stephen Wilkes, Daniel Jones, Dawn Watson, and Blair Seagram.

Inaugural Exhibition

The Rental Gallery in East Hampton, which had previously been located in Los Angeles and New York City, will open its inaugural exhibition, “Oliver Twist, Chapter 2: Dear Darren,” on Saturday. A reception will he held on May 27 from 4 to 6 p.m.

The show, which will run through June 17, includes work by 40 artists, among them Sherrie Levine, R.H. Quaytman, Kenny Schachter, and Jennifer Rubell.

A four-minute video of Mr. Mesler talking about his gallery, his move to East Hampton, and his background as an artist and gallery owner can be accessed at vimeo.com.

Mike Solomon in Chelsea

“Immediate Splendor,” 19 recent paintings and works on paper by Mike Solomon, will open next Thursday, with a 6 to 8 p.m. reception, at Berry Campbell in Chelsea. It will remain on view through July 8.

Mr. Solomon, an East Hampton native who now divides his time between the North Fork and Sarasota, Fla., has explored a range of subjects, styles, and materials, from traditional watercolors to roplex to acrylic gels to beeswax. His recent works are composites of multiple layers of thin papers; painted in watercolors, then infused with resin, so that each transparent layer reacts and builds from the one before it.

Two Solo Shows at Janet Lehr

Janet Lehr Fine Arts in East Hampton will present concurrent solo shows of work by Christopher Deeton and Haim Mizrahi from Saturday through June 27, with an opening set for Saturday from 8 to 10 p.m.

Mr. Deeton pours paint onto canvas, then uses brushwork to achieve an intense sense of depth. Among his influences are Clyfford Still and Morris Lewis.

European modernists such as Kandinsky, Picasso, and Sonia Delaunay, as well as Abstract Expressionism, have had an impact on Mr. Mizrahi, an Israeli who lives in Springs.

At Sea With Sara Nightingale

Sara Nightingale is a passionate sailor, so it’s no surprise that her Sag Harbor gallery is launching a show on Saturday called “#friendswithboats,” with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. The exhibition will continue through July 11.

Participating artists are Ani Ant­reasyan, Scott Bluedorn, Nuala Clarke, Rossa Cole, Rose Marie Cromwell, Elizabeth Dow, Glenn Fischer, Melora Griffis, Sylvia Hommert, Donald Lip­ski, Kelly Neidig, Barry Underwood, Su­zanne Unrein, Judith Simonian, and Mark Webber.

A percentage of proceeds from sales will be donated to the scholarship program of the Breakwater Yacht Club in Sag Harbor.

New at Chase Contemporary

“Come Fly With Me,” an exhibition of paintings by Guy Stanley Philoche, will be on view at Chase Edwards Contemporary Fine Art in Bridgehampton from tomorrow through June 8. A reception will take place tomorrow evening from 6 to 9. Mr. Philoche’s buildup of city walls with wheat-pasted posters, advertisements, tagging, and graffiti inspires his lush surfaces.

Group Show at Kramoris

Sag Harbor’s Romany Kramoris Gallery is presenting “Ready, Set, Go,” a group exhibition opening today and continuing through June 15. A reception will take place Saturday from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

The show includes paintings by Christopher Engel, Kelly Nelson, Lynn Matsuoka, Isabel Pavao, and Ghilia Lipman-Wulf, and photographs by Alan Nevins.

Annual Memorial Day

Exhibitions

The Montauk Artists Association will hold its annual Memorial Day weekend show tomorrow through Sunday on the hamlet’s central green. The outdoor exhibition, which includes arts and crafts in all mediums, will be open Friday from noon to 6 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Some 30 miles to the west, the Southampton Artists Association will also hold its annual Memorial Day show, at the Southampton Cultural Center. The exhibition opens today and continues through June 4, with a reception set for tomorrow from 4 to 6 p.m.

The Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill will present tomorrow at 6 p.m. a performance by Hopefully Forgiven, whose musical styles, ranging from bluegrass to rock, are familiar to East End music fans.

Formed in 2014 by the singer/songwriters Telly Karoussos and “Alabama Brad” Penuel, the group mixes original songs drawing from rock, bluegrass, country western and rockabilly with covers of such bands as the Rolling Stones, Taylor Swift, the Band, and Van Morrison. Hopefully Forgiven recently released “Soaked,” its debut EP of original songs, available on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, and other platforms.

The band also includes Benjamin Goodale, playing his homemade stand-up electric bass, and Kevin Foran on drums. Tickets are $12, free for members, students, and children. Advance reservations have been recommended.

The closing party for the Southampton Art Center’s exhibition “East End Collected 3,” set for Saturday evening at 7, will feature the music of Mambo Loco.

Known for its performance of classic music of Afro-Cuban and Puerto Rican origin, the band has been bringing the best of old-school Latin and Latin jazz to Long Island for several years. Mambo Loco often performs on the East End.

The group consists of Larry Belford, lead vocals and percussion; Christian Rivera, vocals, percussion, and con­guero; Alfredo Gonzalez, trombone, violin, percussion, and vocals; Bill Smith, piano and vocals, and Wayne Burgess, bass and vocals.

The Southampton Cultural Center’s Rising Stars piano series will present a concert by the prize-winning Pianofest artist Vincent Ip on Saturday at 7 p.m.

Mr. Ip, who was also the 2010 Hong Kong figure-skating champion, has played at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Steinway Hall, Klavierhaus, Alexander Kasser Theater, Greenfield Hall at the Manhattan School of Music, and Dolan Hall at the College of St. Elizabeth, among others. He will perform music by Schubert, Chopin, and Mendelssohn. 

Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door, and free for students under 21.

Scott Schwartz speaks in superlatives — “greatest,” “magnificent,” “world-class,” “thrilling,” “unparalleled,” and that is just in one sentence. Well, not really, but it is tempting to go “over the top” after spending an hour with his infectious enthusiasm.

When he first arrived almost five years ago to take over as Bay Street Theater’s artistic director, the Broadway brat (he is the son of Stephen Schwartz, the award-winning composer of “Wicked,” “Pippin,” “Godspell,” and numerous other scores and musical works) was an outsider and an unproven commodity on the Sag Harbor theater scene. Bay Street had fallen on uncertain times with a few years of lackluster performance, management shakeups, and a transitional season that might be best characterized as Florida dinner-theater classic. 

Mr. Schwartz is now helming his fourth season fully in charge of programming. His productions that draw on national and international sources of plays, directors, actors, and designers and shaped for East End summer and year-round audiences are clearly a hit. An off-season schedule that has shifted from old films to live performances from musicians, comedians, and even opera, has also brought winter crowds to the theater and to Sag Harbor.

After an awkward stage, Bay Street has emerged as a swan, or rather, a diva ready for its close-up.

In a recent junket to discuss the new summer season, Mr. Schwartz said that the theater’s “subscriptions were way up over last year’s,” which were also “way up.” The theater’s New Works Festival had full houses for most plays, and the fall and spring events have been selling out. 

The theater is building on what worked in the past couple of seasons, and shaking its schedule up a bit to accommodate its patrons better. This year, comedy has moved from Mondays to three Saturdays, beginning with Colin Quinn this weekend, Colin Jost on July 1, and a final comedian to be announced for Aug. 5.

The cabaret-style concerts that were usually scheduled on Saturdays have moved to Mondays with Betty Buckley up first on July 10. Other performers include Ben Vereen, Lorna Luft, first and Mr. Schwartz’s father performing with friends.

On the weekend of Aug. 25, Bay Street will once again be in Mashashimuet Park with a concert presentation of “Kiss Me, Kate,” Cole Porter’s musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” starring Melissa Errico.

This year’s Mainstage season will consist of three plays: “The Man in the Ceiling,” “Intimate Apparel,” and “As You Like It.”

Jules Feiffer’s “The Man in the Ceiling” is first up from Tuesday (with a limited number of “pay-what-you-can” tickets available at 11 a.m. that day at the box office) to June 25.  This production is exciting to Mr. Schwartz for several reasons. It’s the first New Works Festival play that has gone on to a full production. It is also a “show with three major artists all stepping out of their comfort zone.” It is Mr. Feiffer’s first musical. It is the first time Jeffery Seller, known for his work as a producer of “Hamilton,” “Avenue Q,” and “Rent,” will direct a production. Andrew Lippa, who wrote the music and lyrics for the show, will be acting in it as well.

Rick Lyon, the puppet designer for “Avenue Q,” crafted puppets based on Mr. Feiffer’s illustrations for the original graphic novel. David Korins worked up something similar for the set design. “It’s a dream team,” Mr. Schwartz said. “I can see opening this show on Broadway.” Mr. Schwartz said the world premiere of this musical continues a tradition he started of having one premiere each season. “It’s central to us, and I love new musicals.”

He will follow that by “giving a fresh look to an earlier play by a master playwright.” “Intimate Apparel” was produced 14 years ago, before Lynn Nottage won Pulitzer Prizes for two of her plays, “Ruined” and “Sweat.” He said “the smaller plays ebb away and get lost, because the next thing keeps coming.”

Running in Sag Harbor from July 4 to July 30, it will star Kelly McCreary, a theater and television star from “Grey’s Anatomy,” as Esther Mills, an African-American living in New York City in 1905. Esther makes lingerie for fancy ladies and ladies of the evening while searching for more meaning in her life.

Of “As You Like It,” his first Mainstage Shakespeare production, Mr. Schwartz said he is “thrilled.” He has “one of the greatest directors today” in John Doyle, who guided award-winning stage productions such as the “Sweeney Todd” revival and “The Color Purple.” “I’ve always wanted to work with him and he wanted to do ‘As You Like It,’ one of my favorite plays,” Mr. Schwartz said.

With many songs built into the text, “it’s almost a musical the way Shakespeare wrote it,” Mr. Schwartz said. Mr. Doyle wanted to make it even more of a musical, which required a composer. “There’s this guy named Stephen Schwartz, and I’ve always wanted to work with him,” Mr. Doyle told him. Mr. Schwartz said he would make an introduction. They hit it off, and the play now has a “terrific, really fun” original score written by his father.

The production will be set in the 1930s and have a “Cotton Club” feeling. Many of the actors will play instruments on stage, as Patti LuPone did in Mr. Doyle’s version of “Sweeney Todd.” A co-production with Classic Stage Company, the play will run from Aug. 8 to Labor Day and then go immediately into the city for pre-production, another exciting development. 

Mr. Schwartz also described a dizzying array of theater camps and master classes for kids and teens, which should be checked out on the Bay Street website. Goat on a Boat puppet theater will return throughout the summer. And the summer benefit will be held once again on Long Wharf on July 15.

“You can feel this energy,” Mr. Schwartz said. With defining themes of identity, imagination, love, and self-discovery, “this might be the most exciting season yet.”

Fund-raising momentum is building for the purchase of the Sag Harbor Cinema property. Last week, boldface names such as Billy Joel, who owns a house just a few blocks away, Martin Scorsese, an occasional visitor to the area, and Harvey Weinstein, who owns a house in East Hampton, were revealed to have joined the campaign. This week, Andy Cohen, who has a house on Noyac Bay, announced his support as well.

“Seeing a film at the Sag Harbor Cinema was truly special, as it made you feel like you were a part of the community,” Mr. Cohen, a TV talk show host and producer who has been coming to Sag Harbor and the East End for more than two decades, said by email on Monday. 

He said he felt a real sense of loss when he saw the site for the first time after the December fire that destroyed the cinema. “It’s devastating to see a hole” in that space, he said, adding that he always thought of the theater as an iconic landmark. “It welcomed you to the village. When you saw it, you knew you were home. You couldn’t miss that big red sign that brightened Main Street!”

The Sag Harbor Partnership, a community group that has inked an $8 million deal with the current owner, Gerry Mallow, to purchase the property, announced this week it will erect a 42-foot wall at the site. It will honor first responders and include a request for help in rebuilding the theater. The wall will incorporate some renderings of the structure’s new design by NK Architects and Croxton Collaborative Architects.

The partnership will also name the cinema’s popcorn stand after Mr. Joel in honor of his donation. While it would not reveal how much Mr. Joel had contributed, a $500,000 donation was listed as a naming opportunity for the popcorn stand on the partnership’s website.

“He knows exactly how much the sign and the cinema mean to all of Main Street,” Nick Gazzolo, the president of the partnership, said. “It’s so encouraging that he answered the call to help restore this landmark with such a generous gift. So many of his songs show his understanding of how much specific places mean to people, and we are so grateful that he agrees the Sag Harbor Cinema is a special place worth fighting for.”

In the days after the fire, Mr. Joel paid tribute to the cinema during a concert at Madison Square Garden, playing Ennio Morricone’s “Cinema Paradiso” on the piano.

The partnership has to raise the money to purchase the property and has until the end of the year to close the deal. The group needs about 75 percent, or $6 million, in donations and pledges by July 1. When it announced that it had reached an agreement with Mr. Mallow in April, it already had $1 million from an anonymous donor. So far, $2.25 million has been raised.

Plans include rebuilding the facade, repairing the Art Deco neon sign, and rebuilding and repurposing some of the space. The group wants to establish a Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center, a not-for-profit that would expand on the cinema’s tradition of art house film programming with educational initiatives for school-age children and residents. The partnership’s April Gornik, an artist and activist who lives on North Haven, said estimates for the construction project are $4 million to $5 million at a minimum.

Preliminary plans include creating two theaters and a private screening room, all with state-of-the-art equipment and a new sound system. The theaters are to feature projection ratios “that will allow film to be shown as it was intended, and give the house the ability to show digital, 35-millimeter, and even 16-millimeter with astonishing resolution, so that the viewer experience will be as the filmmakers had intended,” the partnership said in a press release. “This will be a plus that few other art houses anywhere offer, and will make the emphasis on offering film history as well as contemporary movie-making a reality.”

“For as long as I can remember, the Sag Harbor Cinema has stood as a beacon of culture on Long Island,” Mr. Scorsese said in the release. “On the evening it was destroyed, the cinema was showing two European films, neither of which were considered blockbuster hits, but that wasn’t the point. This theater was about art, and the ability for film to inspire people to persevere in the face of adversity. I hope people from all over the East End will join in this fight to save Sag Harbor’s center of culture.”

An advisory board is developing the plan for the cinema. Members include the Oscar-winning actress, singer, and author Dame Julie Andrews, Anne Chaisson, the executive director of the Hamptons International Film Festival, and Andrea Grover, executive director of Guild Hall. Other community members who are contributing to the effort are Elizabeth Dow, John Battle, and the Topping Rose House. A Party for the Cinema will take place on July 16 on Long Wharf with food, drink, and an auction of art provided by local businesses.

“Not everything can be replaced,” Mr. Cohen said, “but I do have faith . . . we can rebuild and also maintain the authenticity and charm that is Sag Harbor.”

All donations are tax-deductible and can be made online through sagharborcinema.org. If the campaign goal is not reached by the end of the year, all pledges will be canceled and all donations refunded.

With Reporting by Jennifer Landes

With a fresh outlook and a new lineup chock-full of luminaries, the Fridays at Five series of author talks at the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton will have a new look and feel this year.

Steven Gaines, a writer who spoke last year at the library, said he was “grateful to be there, but it was my fourth or fifth time.” The schedule “seemed familiar to me,” he said, and “I told them I thought I could help.” Mr. Gaines worked with Tina Raymond and Judy Williams, who became co-presidents of the Friends of the Library this year. 

“We wanted to shake things up a bit,” Ms. Raymond said last week. “Like library friends in other communities, we’re finding the need to pull in younger members. Steven has been fantastic at bringing new life to the process.”

The series will keep its traditional day and time in July and August, but will kick off at 6 p.m. on Sunday with a panel of notables — Candace Bushnell, Erica Jong, and Gail Sheehy — moderated by the New York Times columnist Philip Galanes. Each woman has been a factor in defining and expanding the female voice of their generations, particularly in regard to sexuality. 

Ms. Sheehy helped define the “New Journalism” of the 1960s and ’70s at New York magazine. Ms. Jong’s 1973 novel “Fear of Flying” was a frank revelation of women’s attitudes toward sex for a generation who came of age on the pill. Ms. Bushnell’s “Sex and the City” mini-empire of books, television series, and films, all stem from her mid-’90s column in The New York Observer, which took a gimlet-eyed look at the dating rituals of the urban elite.

This will be Ms. Bushnell’s first “Fridays at Five.” “I recently moved to Sag Harbor and I am excited about participating in the event. I love that it benefits the library,” she said. It will not be her first time speaking with Erica Jong, however. “I don’t know how long I’ve known Erica — at least 20 years, probably longer!”

Some of Mr. Gaines’s suggested innovations, including moving the series to “Saturdays at Six” to attract a broader audience, were not accepted, and he bristled at the resistance. “I quit six times and then came back.” He was told the series was always on Fridays, because Elaine Benson’s gallery had its receptions on Saturdays. The fact that Ms. Benson died two decades ago was not lost on Mr. Gaines, but he let it go.

He thought that Mr. Galanes, who writes the “Table for Three” interview series for the Sunday Times, would be the perfect interviewer for the three women. “I asked and he said yes. I’m thrilled about that. The kickoff will be dynamic and different, with not just local writers, not just people who live nearby, but nationally and internationally known writers.”  

     There will be eight nights of the regular series. Ina Garten of East Hampton was the first to sign on, with the film and theater director Rob Marshall interviewing her about her latest book, “Cooking for Jeffrey. ”

Mr. Gaines “started with Ina, and then one incredible author after another,” said Ms. Raymond. 

Jay McInerney, a Sag Harbor part-timer whom The Guardian newspaper called a “great chronicler of New York,” will begin the official season on July 7, reading from his latest book, “Bright, Precious Days. ”

On July 28, Colson Whitehead, whose spent his childhood summers in Sag Harbor, will read from his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Underground Railroad,” which also received the 2016 National Book Award in literature. 

The series ends on Aug. 25 with Carl Bernstein, co-author of “All the President’s Men,” who worked with Bob Woodward at The Washington Post to get to the bottom of the Watergate scandal. Their reporting led to Richard Nixon’s resignation as impeachment loomed. With impeachment talk buzzing around Washington once again, Mr. Bernstein’s event might be standing room only. 

Other speakers include Blanche Wiesen Cook, Kati Marton, and Kate Siegel, speaking with her mother, Kim Friedman. Ms. Siegel’s “Mother, Can You Not?” is a collection of essays based on her unusual relationship with her “helicopter mom.” The author chronicles their daily exchanges in a popular Instagram account, @crazyJewishmom, posting screen shots of their text messages. 

Mr. Gaines said he had participated with the two of them in a speaking engagement. “Before Kate got to the podium, her mother announced that ‘My daughter went to Princeton and her eggs are dying, come see me later if you have a son for her. ’ I  think we are going to bring down the house. ”

According to Ms. Raymond, Mr. Gaines has “really helped us by getting authors and jazzing up the program a bit. At some point, you have to reinvent yourself. ” Allowing him some latitude, she said, also gave those library supporters who resisted his approach in the beginning a chance “to see the difference. ” The Friends of the Library are “completely on board at this point. When someone shakes things up a bit, it hurts, but we’re all having fun. ” 

Tickets for Sunday night’s event, to be held in the library’s backyard, can be purchased at the door.

It might seem odd that Ruth Appelhof is currently in Rome, assembling a book proposal on the American artist Lee Krasner. But most everything about the project embraces the improbable and the serendipitous.

Almost two years ago, when Ms. Appelhof announced her retirement from Guild Hall, she told The Star that she wanted to revisit some interviews she had taped during a summer she spent with Lee Krasner.

Since she began the project last year, she has found enormous support from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs, and the American Academy in Rome, which is hosting her as a visiting scholar for five weeks, ending June 5. The foundation, based in Manhattan, announced this week that it has bestowed upon her a $25,000 research fellowship.

It was Krasner’s suggestion that Ms. Appelhof write her master’s thesis about her artwork and that she spend the summer with her in Springs in 1974. Ms. Appelhof picked Krasner up at her high-rise building in her bright orange Ford Pinto, not realizing that neither of them knew how to get to Springs.

Once they sorted out directions and found their way to the house, Ms. Appelhof discovered that Krasner, some 20 years after Jackson Pollock had left her a widow, was just as interested in having her drive and run errands as she was in supporting her thesis. Yet they still became good friends.

“I stayed in the room Lee used as her studio when Jackson was alive,” Ms. Appelhof recalled recently over breakfast. “On my bed was a beautiful old quilt,” part of Lee’s collection. “I remember it so clearly.” The room is now being used as part of the museum’s office space, but the view from the window onto the property on Accabonac Harbor remains familiar to her. 

Over the past few months, Ms. Appelhof has spent most afternoons at the house, reading books and research materials at the same marble table where she and Krasner had breakfast. “I always burned the toast,” she said. “She was never very happy with me.”

Although much of the house has been transformed from residence to museum, many things look the same to her. “I think they still have the same mats in the bathroom upstairs from when I was there.” The pantry also looks as if no time has passed since Krasner’s death in 1984, “with all the same utensils.”

She spent her mornings interviewing Krasner and typed up the contents of the reel-to-reel tape recordings in the evenings. Krasner would look at the transcript the next day and redact much of it. But Ms. Appelhof preserved the tapes and recently had them transcribed. 

The interviews are the wellspring of her work, but she has also compiled what she calls her bible of some 100 people who knew Krasner, intending to interview them all. “I want a rich taste of everyone’s understanding of her.”

So far, her quest has taken her to the New York City apartment of Alice Walton, the Walmart heiress who founded Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., with the bulk of her collection. Still in her personal collection is a mosaic table that Krasner made with materials left over from a work Pollock had experimented with in the late 1930s. 

“I walk into the apartment and it is filled with the most amazing art,” Ms. Appelhof said. “Right smack in the middle of the living room is Lee’s table, where the maid served us tea.”

Ms. Appelhof asked Ms. Walton if she could crawl under the table to see if it was signed. “She crawled right under with me. And it was signed. She just wrote ‘Lee.’ ”

She has spoken with many of Krasner’s dealers through the years, including John Cheim, who accompanied Krasner to a retrospective of her work in Houston during the last year of her life. It traveled to the Museum of Modern Art as well, but not until after her death. At the time, Mr. Cheim, now a partner in the Cheim & Read gallery in New York, worked for the Robert Miller Gallery, which closed last year. “He had tremendous fondness for her. He said he always falls for old women.”

Ms. Appelhof has also interviewed Krasner’s current representative, Eric Gleeson, at the Paul Kasmin Gallery, who she said has been gracious with time and resources. Betsy Miller, of the Robert Miller Gallery, has been a source of remembrances and information. 

In addition to committing Gail Levin’s biography to memory, Ms. Appelhof has tracked down scholars of Krasner’s work and era, such as Irving Sandler. Barbara Rose, who put the original Krasner retrospective together, has been in Rome during Ms. Appelhof’s stay and has been “generous in sharing her thoughts.”

Helen Harrison, the director of the Pollock-Krasner House, has given her contacts and pulled out a lot of the house’s collection of primary and secondary sources. These include the tapes Jeffrey Potter used for his book on Jackson Pollock, “To a Violent Grave.” Ms. Appelhof said everyone he interviewed talked about Lee in addition to Jackson, “and they don’t hold back.”

Molly Barnes, a former Springs neighbor, recalled having a blast going to tag sales with Krasner, and Ms. Appelhof would like to find other neighbors and friends on the South Fork. “I found someone in Montauk who was a companion. She didn’t like to spend the night there alone. She had me come out because she needed a chauffeur. I think the way a lot of people met her was through those relationships.” 

She has encouraged anyone who knew Krasner to email her at [email protected]. She is also keeping a blog at RAArts.net.

After months of work, she said, “the more I read, the more I realize everything has been covered quite well. Lee is an important artist and has been treated seriously by scholars.” Ms. Levin’s recent biography was “a fantastic book. I see my job as bringing Lee Krasner back to the forefront as a human being” through the words of her friends and colleagues and “some people who weren’t her friends for a rounded view of this amazing artist.”

In Ben Woolf’s play “Angry Young Man,” which will have its American premiere Wednesday at Guild Hall, four actors, two women and two men, play the same character, Youssef, often within the same scene. Those four actors also take turns playing the other 11 characters, who range from an elderly woman with an Irish brogue to a towering thug named Bruno to a young refugee named Gjerg.

First produced at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2005 and winner of numerous awards at the 2013 Adelaide Festival in Australia, “Angry Young Man” is the story of Youssef, an Egyptian surgeon who arrives in London at the play’s beginning seeking a new life. 

The mistakes and mishaps that befall an emigrant from the Middle East to the West, including running afoul of white nationalists, being ripped off by a taxi driver, and being abducted and beaten by xenophobes, are an implicit comment on the obstacles faced by refugees. But Youssef’s plight is played not so much for sympathy as for laughs. Laced with physical comedy, the style of the play dates to “The Goon Show,” which ran on British radio from 1951 to 1960.

“ ‘The Goon Show’ led to ‘Beyond the Fringe,’ which in turn became ‘Monty Python,’ ” said Stephen Hamilton, the director of the production. “All were extended sketch comedies. What you see may be true and it may not be true. It may be stylized or it may be straight up. The play is a combination of that English ancestry, a bit of the Marx Brothers’ ‘Duck Soup,’ and a little bit of the Three Stooges.”

“The characters speak the stage directions. But in this case it’s four different actors as the same character telling the story. So all of a sudden we’re in a meta situation. Of course, the challenge there, because it is a very fast-moving narrative, is that the audience might ask, ‘Am I still listening to Youssef or am I listening to a different character?’ ”

To help the audience realize when an actor changes into a different character without any verbal cues, the director decided to use costume elements. Patrick wears a certain hat, for example; Gjerg wears a specific outfit.

Mr. Hamilton was given the play by Frances Hill, the founding artistic director of Urban Stages in Manhattan, which has collaborated with Guild Hall and the producer Ellen Myers on the production. “Frances was here last year to see ‘The Night Alive,’ a play I directed at Guild Hall. She had read and loved ‘Angry Young Man’ and asked me if I wanted to direct it,” he said.

The thought of directing such an unusual and complicated play was daunting. “I had never directed anything like it before, and I found the prospect of approaching the piece terrifying. As I went to bed, I told my wife I wasn’t going to do it.

I woke up the next day and said, ‘It’s still terrifying, but I’ve got to do this.’ ”

He remained frightened for the first three days in rehearsal until the company made it clear they and their director were going to figure it out together. He realized early on, he said, that the actors — Christopher Daftsios, Rami Margron, Max Samuels, and Nazli Sarpkaya — had to “own” the play themselves.

“They really threw themselves into it. When I was casting, I was especially interested in comedy skills — physical comedy, improv, things like that.” He was delighted to learn from her résumé that Ms. Margron had trained in buffoonery in Paris. “From the beginning, I realized I was in a room with some really talented, really committed artists. The challenge was to go into rehearsal and lift the play up off the page. It was a really wonderful experience.”

A producer, actor, director, and teacher, Mr. Hamilton currently serves as director of the Southampton Theatre Conference, a graduate program at Stony Brook Southampton. He co-founded Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theater in 1991 and oversaw more than 50 productions during his 17 years there. He has directed seven plays at Guild Hall since 2006.

Mr. Woolf is an award-winning British writer and director who has worked for companies including the National Theatre, Donmar Warehouse, Bush Theatre, Theatre Royal Bath, and Dreamworks. He was associate director of “Ivanov” with Kenneth Branagh and Tom Hiddleston.

“Angry Young Men” will run Wednesdays through Sundays at 8 p.m. through June 18. Tickets are $35, $15 for students.