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Performance Trifecta at Guild Hall

Performance Trifecta at Guild Hall

Events at Guild Hall in East Hampton
By
Star Staff

Guild Hall will present an encore screening of the Donmar Warehouse’s London production of “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” as part of its National Theater Live series, on Saturday evening at 7. The play was adapted by Christopher Hampton from Choderlos de Laclos’s 1782 novel of sex, intrigue, and betrayal in pre-revolutionary France that scandalized the world.

The production is directed by Josie Rourke, and the cast features Elaine Cassidy as Madame de Tourvel, Janet McTeer as the Marquise de Merteuil, and Dominic West as the Vicomte de Valmont. Tickets are $18, $16 for members.

A performance of a different sort will take place Sunday at 3 p.m. when the Neo-Political Cowgirls, a dance-theater company devoted to celebrating the female voice, lead an afternoon of dance, song, and spoken word to help The Retreat raise awareness of domestic violence.

The event is part of One Billion Rising, an annual global campaign that began on Valentine’s Day in 2013, when people across the world gathered to dance and protest injustices inflicted upon women. East End participants who would like to learn the One Billion Rising global dance can meet at Guild Hall at 2:15. The event is free and open to everyone; donations to The Retreat will be welcomed.

The John Drew Theater Lab will present a free staged reading of “Perfect Fifths,” a new musical by Dan Rider, on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. “Perfect Fifths” is the story of Sam, who feels emotionally empty until she meets Rose, a cellist, and experiences an awakening. Holly Kristina Goldstein directs a cast including Goldie Flavelle, Corynne Victoria Peters, Brinda Dixit, Taylor Edelhart, and Mr. Rider.

‘A Really Good Gig’

‘A Really Good Gig’

Butch Trucks, a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, performed with Great Caesar’s Ghost at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett.
Butch Trucks, a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, performed with Great Caesar’s Ghost at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett.
Fabian Rodriguez
Great Caesar’s Ghost has released “Live at the Stephen Talkhouse,” documenting its Aug. 13, 2015, performance there with Butch Trucks
By
Christopher Walsh

The band Great Caesar’s Ghost has released “Live at the Stephen Talkhouse,” documenting its Aug. 13, 2015, performance there with Butch Trucks, a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band. 

“It was a really good gig,” said Larry Schmid, who founded Great Caesar’s Ghost in 2004. “We had a very good night. That’s what prompted us to actually make a disc.” 

Mr. Trucks agreed, said Mr. Schmid, who lives in Bridgehampton and owns Applewild Farms there. “He was very enthusiastic.” Mr. Trucks had arrived from France the day before the performance, allowing just one group rehearsal. “It’s amazing he played as well as he did,” Mr. Schmid said. “He was on fire.” 

Prior to Mr. Trucks’s involvement, one of the band’s first performances, featuring the guitarist G.E. Smith, who lives in Amagansett, was recorded, released on CD, and broadcast on satellite and terrestrial radio. “Things happened in a hurry,” Mr. Schmid said last year. 

He met Mr. Trucks, who lives in France and Florida, through a mutual acquaintance who had given Mr. Trucks some of the band’s recordings. They first played together in 2011.  

Selections on “Live at the Stephen Talkhouse” include music of the Allman Brothers Band, the renowned Southern group that wove rock ’n’ roll, jazz, blues, and psychedelia into long, soulful improvisations, and the Grateful Dead, who bore stylistic similarities to the Allmans. 

Accordingly, several of the songs performed by Great Caesar’s Ghost and Mr. Trucks stretch beyond the 10-minute mark. Mr. Schmid and Peter Michne, who is known as Bosco, trade guitar solos, each spinning into lengthy, hypnotic improvisations as the players behind them — Mr. Trucks and Ed DiCaprio on drums, Keith Hill on keyboards, and Klyph Black on bass — slowly build the songs’ intensity. 

The group is tight and fluid; sonically, their performance is a remarkably faithful homage to the Allman Brothers, who disbanded in 2014 after surviving the deaths of two founding members, the dismissal of another, and a seven-year dormancy.

“As soon as he started to play, you heard the whole Allman Brothers thing,” Mr. Black, the band’s newest member, said of Mr. Trucks. “That was so great. Ed is an incredible, really great drummer, and as soon as Butch sat down, you heard the Allman Brothers. I was honored to play with him, and to play with that band.” 

Michael Mazzaraco and Kevin Santacroce, sound engineers at the Talkhouse and musicians in their own right, recorded the performance. The “Live at the Stephen Talkhouse” CD, which features photography by Fabian Rodriguez, an Amagansett resident who is also a musician, is available at CDBaby.com. Digital tracks are also available there, at Apple’s iTunes store, and at other online retailers. The album has been featured on Sirius XM Satellite Radio’s Deep Tracks channel. 

“It’s a labor of love for us,” Mr. Schmid said of his band. “We’re not under the illusion that we’re going to do anything other than celebrate great music. It’s a lot of fun, and the music on the record has, hopefully, been respected.” 

With Mr. Trucks on drums, Great Caesar’s Ghost will return to the Stephen Talkhouse on Aug. 6.

The Art Scene 02.18.16

The Art Scene 02.18.16

Local Art News
By
Mark Segal

Guild Hall Members Show

The Guild Hall Artists Members Exhibition’s 78th iteration is on the horizon, and the museum is now accepting entries for Long Island’s oldest non-juried show, which will open on April 23 and run through June 4. The winner of top honors will be given a solo show in Guild Hall’s Spiga Gallery.

This year’s judge is Jia Jia Fei, who was recently named director of digital, the first to hold the title, at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan, where she will oversee the museum’s curatorial and education programming on its website, blog, apps, email, and social media. She was previously associate director of digital marketing at the Guggenheim Museum.

Online registration is open now through 3 p.m. on April 15, leaving entrants nine hours to file their taxes. Members who prefer a hard-copy registration package can request one by phone at 324-0806 or on the museum’s website. Mailed entries must be postmarked by April 8. In addition, artists can register in person from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on April 15 and 16.

Awards will also be given for best representational painting, best abstract painting, best sculpture, best work on paper, best mixed media, and best photograph. Honorable mention citations, the $250 Catherine and Theo Hios Landscape Award, and the best new museum artist member prize will also be awarded.

 

Home, Sweet Home Exhibit

The Home, Sweet Home Museum on James Lane in East Hampton will be open on Saturday and again on Feb. 27 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and on Sunday and Feb. 28 from 2 to 4. 

In celebration of Presidents Day, the museum will highlight George Washington, with an exhibition of textiles featuring images of the first president and other founding fathers, lithographs, ceramics, and other artworks depicting events related to the founding of the United States.

 

Southampton Artists at S.C.C.

The Southampton Artists Association is holding its annual winter art show at the Southampton Cultural Center from today through Feb. 28, with an opening reception on Saturday from 4 to 6 p.m. The show will include photographs, paintings, drawings, and sculpture. 

The organization’s members hail from both the North and South Forks.

‘Anti-Western’ at Guild Hall

‘Anti-Western’ at Guild Hall

A scene from the film "McCabe and Mrs. Miller"
A scene from the film "McCabe and Mrs. Miller"
The western stars Warren Beatty as McCabe, a small-time gambler, and Julie Christie as Mrs. Miller, a madam
By
Mark Segal

For those who think the Hamptons International Film Festival hibernates during February, think again. The festival that never sleeps will present, in partnership with Guild Hall, a screening of Robert Altman’s 1971 classic “McCabe and Mrs. Miller,” on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the John Drew Theater. Alec Baldwin, the festival’s co-chairman, and David Nugent, its artistic director, will host a discussion after the screening. 

Set in the Pacific Northwest mining town of Presbyterian Church, the western stars Warren Beatty as McCabe, a small-time gambler, and Julie Christie as Mrs. Miller, a madam. The two join forces to open a casino and three-bed bordello in the ramshackle town. 

Their business prospers, as does their personal relationship (as it did concurrently in real life), until a mining company sets out to buy McCabe’s land and establish a monopoly in the town.

When first released, a year after Altman’s widely acclaimed film “M*A*S*H,” “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” was coolly received by a number of critics. Nonetheless, Ms. Christie was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award, the screenplay received a Writers Guild of America nomination, and Vilmos Zsigmond’s cinematography was nominated by the British film academy.

Since then, the film has earned the status of a classic. The American Film Institute named it the eighth best western of all time in 2008, and two years later the Library of Congress selected it for preservation. Altman called it an “ ‘anti-western,’ because the film turns a number of western conventions on their sides,” and many critics have agreed.

Revisiting the film in 1999, Roger Ebert wrote, “It is not often given to a director to make a perfect film. Some spend their lives trying, but always fall short. Robert Altman has made a dozen films that can be called great in one way or another, but one of them is perfect, and that one is ‘McCabe & Mrs. Miller.’ ”

Unlike Vincent Canby, one of his predecessors at The New York Times who gave the film a mixed review in 1971, A.O. Scott, now the paper’s chief film critic, has named “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” one of his five favorite films.

Tickets are $22, $20 for members.

On Tuesday evening at 7:30, the John Drew Theater Lab will present a free staged reading of “My Girl,” a play by Judy Spencer. Starring Amy Kirwin and Sharon O’Connell and directed by Minerva Scelza, “My Girl” is set in Philadelphia in 1986, when newly widowed Vivian trades her suburban house for an apartment in the city.

Her search for a roommate leads to Rose, a lesbian who has also lost a longtime partner. When their friendship evolves unexpectedly into a romance, they must face reactions from friends and family, and Vivian wonders if it’s possible to “wake up gay” in one’s 60s.

The History of Jazz

The History of Jazz

At the East Hampton Library
By
Star Staff

The East Hampton Library will present “Jazz: The First American Art Form,” a free lecture by Craig Boyd, on Saturday afternoon from 2 to 4. Mr. Boyd, a professor of music at Suffolk Community College and recipient of the New York State Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities, will examine the history of jazz from its conception to the present.

The talk will consider major events in African, European, and American sociopolitical history that were the seeds of the unique American art form, as well as rhythm developments, instrumentation, and improvisational techniques. In addition, Mr. Boyd, a member of ASCAP with a number of recordings to his credit, will perform some of his own compositions.

Performances and Tours Saturday at Watermill Center

Performances and Tours Saturday at Watermill Center

7 Daughters of Eve
7 Daughters of Eve
At the Watermill Center
By
Star Staff

The Watermill Center will offer a tour of its building and grounds on Saturday afternoon from 4 to 5:30, followed by open rehearsals by Sahra Motalebi from 6 to 7 and, from 7:30 to 8:30, by 7 Daughters of Eve Thtr. & Perf. Co.

A visual artist, composer, and vocalist, Ms. Motalebi will present her work in progress, “Rendering What Remains,” a 40-minute opera that includes staged performances, video, sculpture installations, and a novella. While at the center, she has developed a section of the work’s musical dialogue titled “Flesh, Format,” which explores the inner lives of two sisters living in different circumstances 100 years from now.

Led by Sibyl Kempson in collaboration with Thomas Riccio, 7 Daughters of Eve Thtr. & Perf. Co. takes its name from a book by Bryan Sykes, a geneticist whose theory of mitochondrial DNA posits that all humans are descended along matrilineal lines from seven original “clan” mothers. The company employs live performance, ritual, and installation to illustrate the interaction of science, religion, and feminism in human history. 

The tour and performances are free, but reservations are required.

Beatles and Stones

Beatles and Stones

At the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor
By
Star Staff

The Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor will rock this weekend with “All the Hits: The Beatles and the Rolling Stones,” two tribute concerts set for tomorrow and Saturday at 8 p.m. Tomorrow’s concert will focus on the bands’ early years, 1960 to 1966; Saturday’s will highlight their music from 1967 and after.

The Beatles’ work will be showcased by Dave Giacone (drums), Randall Hudson III (lead guitar), Michael Schiano (rhythm guitar and vocals), Mick Hargreaves (acoustic guitar and vocals), Joe Lauro (bass guitar and vocals), Dawnette Darden (vocals), and Dan Kootz (keyboard and vocals).

The Stones’ music will feature John Sparrow (lead vocals), James Bernard (drums), David Portocarrero (guitar), Jim Nanos (bass), Joe Delia (keyboards), and Mr. Hudson (lead guitar). 

Tickets to each concert are $25.

Films at Jermain Library Celebrate 1966

Films at Jermain Library Celebrate 1966

"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" starred Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor and was directed by Mike Nichols.
"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" starred Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor and was directed by Mike Nichols.
At John Jermain Memorial Library
By
Star Staff

Sag Harbor’s John Jermain Memorial Library will present “1966: Cinema Breaks Free,” a series of three influential films from that pivotal year, and a related lecture.

The series begins this evening at 7 with a screening of “A Man and a Woman.” Directed by Claude Lelouche and starring Jean-Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimée, the film is the romantic story of the developing relationship between a widow and widower who meet at their children’s school.

“Blow-Up,” Michelangelo Antonioni’s film about a fashion photographer (David Hemmings) in swinging London who thinks he has unwittingly captured a murder on film, will be shown next Thursday. Mike Nichols’s film of Edward Albee’s play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is set for Feb. 18. It stars  Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor; the subject matter and language were controversial at the time of its release.

Michael Edelson, a film historian, writer, and editor who teaches at Stony Brook University, has organized the series and will give a talk on Feb. 25 about “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and the Motion Picture Academy of America’s 1934 censorship code.

‘Jane Eyre’ at Drew

‘Jane Eyre’ at Drew

At Guild Hall
By
Star Staff

An encore screening of the National Theatre’s London production of “Jane Eyre,” adapted from Charlotte Bronte’s novel, will take place Saturday at 7 p.m. at Guild Hall. Sally Cookson’s production, hailed by The Financial Times as “witty, impassioned, and bold,” was first staged by the Bristol Old Vic last year before moving to the National.

“Jane Eyre” follows the emotions and experiences of its title character, including her growth to adulthood and her love for Mr. Rochester, the Byronic master of Thornfield Hall. The heroine faces life’s obstacles head-on, surviving poverty, injustice, and the discovery of bitter betrayal before taking the ultimate decision to follow her heart.

Tickets are $18, $16 for members.

Clifford Ross in N.Y.C.

Clifford Ross in N.Y.C.

At the Landing at Industry City in Brooklyn
By
Star Staff

Clifford Ross has a busy week ahead. On Saturday at 8 p.m., imagery from the multimedia artist’s abstract video “Harmonium Mountain” will accompany a performance by Julian Rachlin of Beethoven’s violin sonatas 1, 6, 9, and 10 in the Kaufmann Concert Hall at Manhattan’s 92nd Street Y. Tickets are $35 and up, $25 for patrons under 35.

The Brooklyn Rail will hold a reception to celebrate the publication of “Hurricane Waves,” a volume containing all 84 of Mr. Ross’s photographs of storm-tossed waves taken over the years, and “Seen and Imagined: The World of Clifford Ross,” which features 139 of the artist’s images, many in color, with texts by David Anfam, Quentin Bajac, Arthur Danto, Jack Flam, Nicholas Negroponte, and Jock Reynolds.

The reception, happening on Monday at 7 p.m. at the office of The Brooklyn Rail in Brooklyn, will include a conversation with Phong Bui, Orville Schell, Mr. Flam, and Mr. Ross.