The Watermill Center will launch its annual Scaler Lecture Series on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. with a talk by Kinan Azmeh, a Syrian clarinetist and composer, titled “Art in Times of Crisis.” Robert Wilson, the center’s artistic director, and Kate Eberstadt, a former artist-in-residence there, have selected the six speakers.

Mr. Azmeh, who was born in Damascus and has lived in New York City since 2001, has appeared as a soloist, composer, and improviser at such venues as Opera Bastille, Paris; Tchaikovsky Grand Hall, Moscow; Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the United Nations General Assembly in New York; the Royal Albert Hall, London, and the Damascus Opera House for its opening concert. He is a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble.

In a recent conversation with Yo-Yo Ma, available on YouTube, also titled “Art in Times of Crisis,” Mr. Azmeh said that he did not write music for an entire year after the popular uprising in Syria in 2011. “But in March 2012 I felt I owed it to myself to keep my own voice loud. If the whole uprising was about people expressing themselves, I thought I owe it to myself to speak up in a way, believing in the freedom that music-making is about.”

The discussion addressed issues Mr. Azmeh will take up during his talk at the center. “A piece of music doesn’t stop a bomb falling,” he said. “It doesn’t feed somebody who’s hungry, it doesn’t free a political prisoner. . . . But it can motivate people to be proactive. I think culture might be the only survivor of violent times. Culture and art document our times for future generations to learn from.”

Mr. Azmeh will begin his presentation with a performance of “A Sad Morning Every Morning” and conclude it with a new composition for video, electronics, and clarinet titled “Don’t Repeat After Me.”

Next Thursday, BG Muhn will discuss “Contemporary North Korean Art: Complexity Within Simplicity.” Mr. Muhn, a painter and art professor at Georgetown University, is an authority on the subject, having made many trips to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, where he has visited museums, exhibitions, and artists’ studios.

Carl Schoonover, a postdoctoral fellow in the Axel Laboratory at Columbia University, where he studies the neural circuitry of odor-driven behavior, will present a whirlwind survey ranging from the earliest attempt to interact with the brain to the seminal technical innovations of the late-19th century to the plethora of technologies that drive research today. His lecture, “How to Look Inside the Brain,” will take place Aug. 9.

Wesley Enoch, the artistic director of both the Sydney Festival and the Queensland Theatre Company, will talk about “Aboriginal Traditions in Contemporary Australian Culture” on Aug. 10. A Noonuccal Nuugi man from Stradbroke Island off the East Coast of Australia, Mr. Enoch has brought “more aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and audiences” to the festival, according to Clover Moore, Sydney’s Lord Mayor.

Cornel West is a prominent intellectual who will speak on “Democracy Matters” on Aug. 16. A frequent guest on the “Bill Maher Show,” CNN, C-Span, and “Democracy Now,” he has taught as Princeton, Yale, Harvard, the University of Paris, and, currently, Union Theological Seminary. Through the lens of the African-American freedom fighting tradition, Dr. West will discuss the 2016 political climate, Socratic self-examination, police brutality, social activism, and other topics.

The final talk, set for Aug. 18, will feature Mary Ellen Carroll, a New York conceptual artist known for her works of “performative architecture.” Her work engages the disciplines of architecture, public policy, writing, performance, film, and technology, and she is dedicated to political and social critique.

All lectures take place at 7:30 p.m. Reservations are free but must be made in advance at watermillcenter.org.

“My Fair Lady,” the iconic Lerner and Loewe musical based on George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” will open a three-and-a-half-week run at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor on Tuesday. The production is directed by Michael Arden, a Tony Award nominee and Outer Critics Circle Award-winner for Best Director of a Musical for the Broadway revival of “Spring Awakening.”

The story of Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower-seller who takes speech lessons from Henry Higgins, a phoneticist, ran for 2,717 performances on Broadway between its opening in 1956 and 1962, a record at the time. The London production, which, like the Broadway one, starred Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, ran almost as long.

Mr. Arden’s production will feature two pianos and 15 actors, who, according to the theater, “will bring the classic story to life in ways you’ve never seen before.” Paul Alexander Nolan will play Professor Higgins, and Kelli Barrett will struggle with her enunciation as Eliza. Other featured actors are Howard McGillin, Carole Shelley, Karen Murphy, John O’Creagh, Bobby Conte Thornton, and Ryan Fitzgerald.

Performances will take place Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Sundays at 7 p.m.; Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 p.m., with 2 p.m. matinees on Aug. 10, 14, 17, 21, 24, and 28. A limited number of pay-what-you-can tickets will be available for Tuesday’s performance after 11 a.m. that day, at the box office only.

A night of swing dancing with the George Gee Swing Orchestra will take place Saturday evening from 6 to 8 in the concert hall of the Southampton Arts Center.

The orchestra is one of the most sought-after swing ensembles in the business, with performances at Lincoln Center, the Rainbow Room, Birdland, Smalls Jazz Club, as well as international jazz venues in Zurich, Tokyo, and Brazil, among many others. In addition to the infectious music, Mr. Gee will bring two professional swing dancers to help get audience members onto the dance floor. Tickets, which are $25, can be purchased at the center’s website.

Also at the center, Jazz on the Steps, the weekly series of informal free outdoor concerts, will feature Marcus McLaurine on bass and Bill Smith on piano on Sunday at noon. The concerts are designed to showcase the diversity of jazz and to appeal to both adults and children.

“Paint at the Parrish,” a monthly program of gallery discussions and activities tailored to people with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia and their caregivers, will be honored tonight with a benefit sponsored by the Alzheimer’s Disease Resource Center from 6 to 8.

The event will include live music by Vanessa Trouble & Co. throughout the evening, a performance by the drumming group Escola de Samba BOOM, hors d’oeuvres, a raw bar, and desserts. Tickets are $250; proceeds will support the ongoing program at the museum, which has served approximately 150 participants since its beginning in March.

Jazz en Plein Air, the museum’s outdoor jazz series organized by Richie Siegler, will feature Nilson Matta, a Brazilian bassist, tomorrow at 6 p.m. Mr. Matta, the artistic and musical director of Samba Meets Jazz, has been instrumental in the evolution and popularity of Brazilian jazz in the United States. Tickets are $10, free for members and students. The museum recommends lawn chairs or blankets.

“Carousel,” a free concert by Robert Bruey, a singer-songwriter, will take place at the Montauk Library on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. Mr. Bruey, who will perform songs from his new album, has been called “a soulful storyteller” by Bonnie Grice, host of “Bonnie in the Morning” on WPPB 88.3 FM.

Magdalene Brandeis, associate director of the Stony Brook Southampton M.F.A. in Film program offered in association with Killer Films, attended a special March on Washington Film Festival awards ceremony at the White House on July 20. Ms. Brandeis had served as a juror in the festival’s inaugural Students and Emerging Filmmaker Competition this year.

If there is anything that funny TV shows like “Saturday Night Live” and “The Daily Show” have proven, it is that there is a huge market for comedy. And if there’s anything that Caroline Hirsch has proven, it’s that it is possible to develop a comedy business with longevity.

Ms. Hirsch is the owner of the well-known comedy nightclub Carolines on Broadway, which she began in 1982 as a small cabaret in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood. Her career in retail, with Gimbels department store, had ended, and she and two partners launched the cabaret, with Ms. Hirsch in charge of booking comedians. Since then, Carolines grew steadily and moved twice, eventually to its present-day, 300-seat theater in Times Square.

Comedy greats including Jerry Seinfeld, Billy Crystal, Jay Leno, Tracy Morgan, and Kathy Griffin have headlined at her club over the years, and on Friday, Aug. 5, Ms. Hirsch will once again produce a show at Guild Hall in East Hampton, titled “Carolines at the Beach.”

Ms. Hirsch, who lives in New York City and Water Mill, said comedy is not an easy business to be in, and that was especially true more than 30 years ago when she was first starting out.

“I think comedy in the beginning was too hip for itself,” she said. “I don’t think a lot of people even understood what was going on at the time. With the clarity of the cable channels and the stand-ups becoming so famous, it’s been defined to the audiences that it’s here to stay, that it’s a big deal, and that it’s a really hard art form to get under your belt.”

She is not a comedian herself, nor did she ever aspire to be one, but she sure loves funny people, going all the way back to Charlie Callas, whom she saw on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” when she was 10. 

For her efforts to amplify comedy as an art form, Ms. Hirsch has been called a pioneer in the industry, especially for her treatment of female comedians as no different from the male comedians who dominate the business.

“I love that she is a very powerful woman on the business side of comedy, which is not par for the course. She’s good to female comics,” said Karen Bergreen, one of the comedians who will perform at Guild Hall on Aug. 5.

Ms. Bergreen, who styles herself as the harried mom, is looking forward to the show. She has performed a few times at the Southampton Cultural Center. “In some ways the audiences [in the Hamptons] are so grateful,” she said. “There are not as many venues to go to for comedy as there are in the city, so I think people are really happy to have a funny night out.”

Vince Judge will host the event, but that the majority of the Guild Hall show features female talent — Ms. Bergreen will be joined by Alex Guarnaschelli, the Food Network star, and Yamaneika Saunders — is simply a coincidence. Ms. Hirsch said she chooses comedians for her shows based on their talent and what she feels would be complementary styles. She has exacting standards: Comics must be original and highly practiced in their delivery with a continuous supply of new material.

“They have to work it and they have to continue to write. There are a lot of comedians around today, but a lot of them never really get to develop,” Ms. Hirsch said. “We like certain people, but sometimes they get to the two-year mark and they’re not writing new material. They’re not going to grow. . . . Today they’re just taking these young stand-ups and putting them on TV shows and wondering why the TV show isn’t doing well.”

Ms. Hirsch is also known for her philanthropy. She is a longtime board member of the Ms. Foundation and has offered her club up as a venue for many fund-raisers over the years, including for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. 

At her waterfront house in Water Mill, which was designed by Francis Fleetwood, the late architect who was credited with reviving the Shingle Style on the South Fork, Ms. Hirsch enjoys collecting 20th and 21st-century art. When she is there, she relaxes as much as she can, although sometimes her business necessitates working from home — particularly when it comes to planning the annual New York Comedy Festival in November, which will draw comedians to venues all over New York City, including Madison Square Garden, the Apollo Theater, and Carnegie Hall. The New York Comedy Festival, in fact, is where Ms. Hirsch sees opportunity in her future. “It gave us a great chance to work with the people who kind of graduated from Carolines. I can work with people I can’t book at the club anymore, like Kevin Hart,” she said. “With the festival, there is probably expansion here with the idea of possibly going to other towns or cities.”

Ms. Hirsch makes sure Carolines stays on top of trends in the industry, which, lately, includes political comedy. A show there dubbed “Anyone Can Be President, Even Us” debuted on Monday. 

“Comedy is a big part of people’s lives,” she said. “If you ever hear from somebody that they don’t like comedy, run. That’s a bad thing. Who doesn’t like to laugh? It’s been proven that it’s really, really good for you.”

New at Drawing Room

The Drawing Room in East Hampton will present solo exhibitions of work by Sharon Horvath and Adrian Nivola from tomorrow through Aug. 29.

“Ohio Eye,” titled for Ms. Horvath’s native state, consists of intimate ink and pigment paintings that reflect the influence in part of her 2014 Fulbright fellowship to Varanasi, India. She layers her compositions with under-drawings in ink on paper, pasted on canvas, and medallions of ornamental pressed pigment that are integrated as bas-relief collage.

While Mr. Nivola’s previous exhibition at the gallery included delicate constructions of fantastic flying machines, his new work focuses on imaginary musical instruments. The artist uses salvaged pieces of broken instruments and other discarded elements to construct hypothetical sculptures that are none­theless tied closely to the practical aspects of instrument design.

Reception at Ille Arts

Ille Arts in Amagansett will hold a reception on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m. to celebrate the launch of a line of ceramics created exclusively for the gallery by Bob Golden. The pastel hues of Mr. Golden’s tower vases celebrate the colors of the East End’s sky and water, while his translucent porcelain lamps capture the light of long summer days.

The gallery will also host a poetry reading in celebration of the photography of Vivien Bittencourt on the occasion of the closing of her exhibition, on Sunday at 3 p.m. Elaine Equi, Jerome Sala, Mike DeCapite, Ron Horning, and Vincent Katz will read.

Library Gallery for Local Artists

The East Hampton Library has inaugurated a local art exhibition series in its Tom Twomey Gallery with a show of work by Karen Peters Sloves. A reception will take place Saturday from 3 to 4:30 p.m., and the exhibition will continue through Aug. 5. 

The space is available to artists and organizations from the East Hampton, Springs, and Wainscott School Districts for a set fee, a portion of which will benefit the library. Each exhibition will be on view for 14 days. Local artists interested in reserving the gallery can consult the library’s website for information and restrictions. 

Bastienne Schmidt in Chelsea

“Typology of Women,” an exhibition and laun­ch of the book of the same title by Bastienne Schmidt of Bridgehampton, is on view at Ricco/Maresca Gallery in Chelsea through Aug. 19.

The exhibition and book consist of hand-painted silhouette cutouts and mixed media on paper, depicting female imagery across cultures and throughout history. Each outline of a female shape contains other figures and marks within it that encourage a reading of the image as a kind of narrative.

Three at Kramoris

Romany Kramoris Gallery in Sag Harbor will open an exhibition of work by three local artists, Thomas Condon, Gayle Tudisco, and Muriel Hanson Falborn, with a reception Saturday afternoon from 4 to 5:30. The show will remain on view through Aug. 18. 

An ardent gardener, Mr. Condon focuses on the landscape of the East End, painting powerful flowers with strong lines and bold shapes. Ms. Tudisco, a plein-air painter, captures the water views, marshes, barns, and boathouses of the region. A landscape designer as well as a painter, Ms. Falborn is inspired by gardens, parks, and homes.

“American Icons”

“American Icons,” an exhibition of work by eight prominent artists, will open tomorrow at Collective by Jeff Lincoln in Southampton with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. It will remain on view through Sept. 30.

The show features the work of Billy Al Bengston, John Chamberlain, Eric Fischl, Alice Neel, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, John Wesley, and Christopher Wool.

Maia Ruth Lee and Peter Sutherland, an artistic couple with varying viewpoints and methods, have individual shows at the Fireplace Project in Springs, both of which seem reflective of the country’s mood on the eve of a divisive  presidential election and in the wake of a global wave of violence and uncertainty.

In a show called “Santa Carla,” Mr. Sutherland’s benches and wall pieces smolder with flames, fireworks, and sunsets (or are they sunrises?) as subjects. The colors are fiery reds and oranges, presented through screens that give them the optical quality of road signs. The town it references in California is known primarily as the setting for the 1987 movie “The Lost Boys,” about a beach town beset by violence and vampires. 

Fiery rhetoric, gunfire, explosions — all of these themes from recent world events appear here. In previous works involving benches, Mr. Sutherland used sweeping panoramas of Western landscapes. Here, the benches called “Kingsford” are tinted a charcoal carbon black, with seat backs that depict a leaping conflagration. The idea that a seat, a place of respite and comfort, could spontaneously combust offers a sense of the suddenness and randomness of terrorism.

Only the images of fishing lures, in happy colors, printed on vinyl and mounted on a rock face, offer some relief from the implied threat and hell-scape Mr. Sutherland has devised. The heat wave outside just makes it smolder more.

In this environment, it seems no accident that Ms. Lee’s show is called “Casual Water.” But even here, she implies the water is temporary, a puddle that will eventually evaporate, as “casual water” is defined on a golf course. 

It is not abundantly clear what her wrought-iron wall sculptures have to do with H2O, but they are pretty and decorative. Their forms are glyphs, devices  of personal meaning that might be language, or symbols, or her own lexicon.

She said in an interview that her Korean parents are Bible translators in Nepal and had to develop their own alphabet for the oral language of Sherpa, an experience that awakened her to the visual possibilities of designing these types of symbols for her art.

The shapes and forms of these works are taken from older building decorations with her own spin. Some look like classic metal pub games and seem engaging. Others have a more threatening presence, like symbols of a saint’s martyrdom or a voodoo doll. The titles also offer a vague unease. “Everyman for Himself” points with a dagger downward in a symbol that might be taken for abstracted male genitalia or a mix of female and male reproductive organs.

The title “Going Up?” for a piece that looks like an old elevator monitor has a binary meaning as well. Is it an invitation, a mixed promise, or a veiled threat? It’s almost a relief when one piece is simply called “Welded Composition.” It takes the pressure off imagining what perils it might imply. 

It’s telling that none of these glyphs made it onto her chart of “Auspicious Glyphs of 2016.” Perhaps it is because they were not realized yet, but the suggestion that they are otherwise gives them a darker presence.

Mostly, however, the installation is peaceful and quiet, an effective balm for the fire and brimstone in the other room, and the suggestions otherwise can be hummed out of one’s head.

Even if it wasn’t intentional to hold the shows during the two political party conventions this summer, the timing is perfect. The art makes you feel like the random thoughts and visions of apocalypse running through your head all month aren’t so crazy after all; that maybe we are all going through our own reckoning, hopefully in time to save us. 

The show remains on view through Aug. 15.

First there were cat videos, which were shown in Southampton earlier this summer. Now, the canine crowd will have their chance to celebrate their favorite pets at the Dog Film Festival on Tuesday at Guild Hall.

The two screenings, at 4 and 6:30 p.m., will offer a mix of documentaries, animated, and live-action shorts by filmmakers from all over the world. The festival has traveled nationally since its premiere in New York in October, and will continue to travel to a total of 12 sites through the fall. Each screening will offer a completely different program and run about 90 minutes.

The earlier screening is more family-oriented with animated stories, humorous musings, an educational piece, and a short film featuring Weimaraners called “The Hardly Boys in Hardly Gold” by William Wegman. “Useful Dog Tricks” demonstrates how dogs can be trained to help around the house. 

At the second screening, there will be 14 short documentary, narrative, and subtitled narrative films. Subjects include a dogwalker with 20 charges, a service dog program that pairs the dogs with women in prison for training, and a scientist who turns himself into a dog from France.

These screenings will benefit the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons, which will receive 50 percent of the box office sales and 10,000 bowls of free pet food. The Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons will participate by bringing adoptable dogs from the shelter, who might just find a home among the audience members.

Tracie Hotchner, a former East Hampton resident and still frequent visitor, is the festival founder.

A pre-screening afternoon tea Pooch Party on Sunday from 4 to 6 p.m. will welcome both dogs and their escorts at the residence of Jewel Morris in Water Mill. Ms. Morris is a founder of the Pet Philanthropy Circle. Tickets for the party are by invitation only and cost $150. The festival, which is open to the public, costs $20. Tickets can be purchased at dogfilmfestival.com.