Cherish the Ladies, an ensemble that has grown over the past 29 years into the most successful Irish-American group devoted to Celtic music, will perform “A Celtic Christmas” on Saturday at 8 p.m. at Guild Hall.

Named after a traditional Irish jig, the group of five women blends vocals, step dancing, and a variety of instruments, including the fiddle, mandolin, flute, whistle, and piano, into a lively package of traditional Irish culture.

The Christmas concert will include classic carols such as “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “Silent Night” in arrangements that highlight Celtic instrumentation and harmonies. Prime orchestra seats are $55, $53 for members, orchestra tickets are $45 and $43, and balcony seats $30 and $28.

It can be a Herculean task to clear out a business after 33 years, but that is what Bebe and Warren Johnson did last week as they said goodbye to the Race Lane storefront of Pritam & Eames to begin a semi-retirement based online and in a new showroom on Mount Desert Island, Me.

Not simply a task of wrapping and packing up boxes of the American Studio furniture that they helped define and create a market for since their store opened in 1981, the move was a time to invite the craftsmen they had worked with for decades to say goodbye and collect their consigned creations. One was on his way to meet them for lunch. Two canceled because the cross-sound ferries had shut down that day due to high surf and wind.

Boxes took the place of tables, chests, and benches. Floor space once dense with the work of Judy Mc­Kie, Andy Buck, Tim Coleman, David Ebner, and many others looked open and barren with a few pieces left by those artists and others still on view, and more under blankets or already cleared out.

While leaving their home away from home was surreal to them, growing up in the Midwest they may have found their future even more difficult to fathom. Mr. Johnson inherited his father’s own thwarted ambitions to be a lawyer. He pursued an undergraduate law degree and continued with graduate study of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. Ms. Johnson, whom he met when they both attended college at the University of Illinois, studied communications at Boston University.

Seated next to each other in an undergraduate course on existentialism, “we were together from the beginning,” Ms. Johnson said during a break for coffee — strong, black, half decaf for both. After their graduate study in Boston, they moved to New York, where Ms. Johnson became director of Asian program operations at the Council on International Educational Exchange. Mr. Johnson tried his hand at business and international trade at what was Chase Manhattan at the time, but discovered filmmaking instead. “I was a square peg in a round hole or a round peg in a square hole, but either way, I realized I was not going to fit.”

Instead, he earned an M.F.A. in film at Columbia University and began making documentaries. The travel he sought through business came to him more easily with filmmaking in Taiwan, Nairobi, and the Arctic. Yet by the late 1970s, the couple were ready for something else.

They had already learned while working on a documentary at the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in Southern France that they could rely on each other and triumph over adversity no matter how challenging the circumstances. “It taught us that if we really believed in something, we could do it,” Mr. Johnson said. The film that resulted was distributed by Grove Press in the United States, and it left them with a hankering for self-employment.

At the same time, it dawned on them that they no longer wanted to live in New York City. Through friends, they had discovered Sag Harbor, and then found a run-down place in East Hampton to restore. Mr. Johnson continued commuting into the city for film projects, but he had also kept up the woodwork he learned from his grandfather as a child and retained an appreciation for a finely crafted and creative object.

Research and discussion with several people in the field convinced them that the market for second-generation American Craftsman furniture was ripe for development. This was a movement that had started with self-taught designers such as Sam Maloof and George Nakashima, continued through certain art schools after World War II, and is still vibrant today.

They developed a five-year plan on a spreadsheet and began visiting artists in 1980. “We walked into their studios just at the right time. It was a happy coincidence that we were looking for craftsmen at the time they were looking for someone like us,” Ms. Johnson said.

In May of 1981, they opened the store, which remained in the same location all these years, a testament to their success as well as the support of Leif Hope, their landlord at the old laundry building. “He probably didn’t understand it at the beginning, but he took a chance on us and has been amazingly supportive,” Mr. Johnson said, adding that he also encouraged them to “leap frog” into taking increasingly more space for the gallery.

Another local person who offered guidance was Jack Larsen. He encouraged them to offer smaller objects, telling them, “You can’t have people coming in two or three times without buying something.”

“It creates an uncomfortable distance between a potential buyer and seller,” according to Ms. Johnson. So they brought in jewelry and other smaller decorative objects.

They opened with a roster of artists who have remained with them as they continued to add more, including Mr. Ebner, Hank Gilpin, Thomas Hucker, Michael Hurwitz, Ms. McKie, Timothy Philbrick, and many others. From the beginning, “we had quite a number of curious East Hampton residents coming through the door,” Mr. Johnson said.

Over the years customers became clients, clients became collectors, and collectors became connoisseurs. But lately, “less and less people have been coming in, and that played a part in our consideration of closing,” Ms. Johnson said.

They agreed that the block the store stood on had changed with the arrival of the bank on the corner and that the people coming to East Hampton in recent years had changed, too. They were less interested in craft or unique designs.

Mr. Johnson, who had planned to retire to his woodshop a few years ago, had spent more time at the gallery recently as Ms. Johnson took an increasing role in outreach and conferences in their field. He will now get that break.

The couple will remain in East Hampton and maintain their website. Their inventory, as well as other consigned pieces, will be displayed in Maine by Tyra Hanson, who owns the Gallery at Somas Sound in Somesville.

The couple will take over the first floor of her two-floor space with objects they select under the Pritam & Eames name. They will organize special shows of furniture, paintings, and decorative objects for the summer of 2015 with an option to renew for 2016. Ms. Hanson, a protégée of the Johnsons, “made us an offer we couldn’t refuse,” Ms. Johnson said, with Ms. Hanson also handling the sales.

In addition to the artists they helped introduce through their gallery, the Johnsons produced a book, “Speaking of Furniture,” a kind of oral history of furniture designers associated with their store, published last year. The Furniture Society recognized their efforts in the field this year with its award of distinction.

Although they agreed that there is less appreciation among the public for the woodworking that is the backbone of the furniture they feature, Ms. Johnson said “it’s just fashion. It will come back. Everything is a cycle.”

Jeff Muhs’s New Paintings

“Slipstream,” a new series of abstract paintings by Jeff Muhs, will open this evening at Lyons Wier Gallery in Chelsea with a reception from 6 to 8 and will remain on view through Dec. 20.

A slipstream is an area of reduced air pressure and forward suction created behind a rapidly moving vehicle. In Mr. Muhs’s paintings, the slipstream is made visually by foreground elements that leave a swirling area of turbulence in their wake.

Mr. Muhs, who lives and works in Southampton, uses a variety of painting techniques, including dripping, smearing, and pouring, to create disparate yet synthesized elements. His work is in numerous public and private collections, including those of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hunter Museum in Memphis, and Guild Hall.

East Hampton Holiday Cards

The East Hampton Historical Society has reissued a limited edition of its holiday cards, which feature a view of Mulford Farm, the Hook Windmill, and Home, Sweet Home, painted by Claus Hoie, the noted East Hampton artist who died in 2007. “Skaters on Town Pond” is the other card in the set.

The cards are available at the society’s office at 101 Main Street and at East Hampton Gardens on Gingerbread Lane. A box of 12 costs $25, and proceeds will benefit the society’s education committee.

In “Loop Holes,” Louise Eastman’s homespun weavings and cast bricks look perfectly at home in the barn that houses the Silas Marder Gallery exhibition space in Bridgehampton. Yet they would look equally at home in some of the South Fork’s remaining untouched classic midcentury ranches, complete with linoleum floors and Formica countertops.

On the one hand, there is such a feeling of Grand-ma-ma in the folksy construction of the wall works, mostly based on a popular weaving technique of the 1950s that churned out homemade potholders for home use or gifts. On the other, we see a contemporary artist’s embrace of fiber art, classic commercial craft, and the employment of color in a variety of bold, subtle, and neutral ways.

Ms. Eastman’s steadfast avoidance of canvas or paper, unless it’s two-ply and gentle on sensitive skin, or else has a sticky backing, is a laudable twist on conventional art-making that still hangs on a wall. Her experiments in sewing and weaving toilet paper, attaching masking tape to felt, and blowing up what one is used to seeing as 6-by-6-inch trivets into the size reserved for grand gestural paintings, force one to take note and enjoy their sunny unpretentiousness. At the same time, her organization of colors, while resolutely random, still stands out as aesthetically adept.

In her woven pieces she appears to work in two main categories, one titled “Potholder,” to underline the reference, and the other “Two-Ply,” which references the qualities of the materials she is using. The resulting forms may be complex colorful geometric abstractions or a strange Minimalist triad of Robert Ryman, Agnes Martin, and Anni Albers. The eye understands that it is looking at woven toilet tissue when gazing at “Two-Ply I,” yet the mind senses so much more in its delicate purity, intercut with thin reinforcing thread lines of many hues.

The floor pieces can be even more complex. They look like odd lots of yarn, and the artist suggests more is going on with them with their titles, each one called “Process.” These are interactive works, where the audience is invited to unravel the balls or add to them. In this way, “Process II” takes up much of the corner it is in, as if a giant spider on acid decided to make it into a web.    A hand-cranked knitting machine is clamped to the gallery’s coffee table so that viewers may relax on the couch, enjoy the view outside the floor-to-ceiling garage door windows, and create and add their own material to the piece, which has now become enmeshed in the staircase up to the loft and woven down from that upper corner like a giant kid’s fort.

Jess Frost, who organized the show, said it has become an adventure to check the progress of the piece at each day’s end.

If the wall and floor pieces were not enough, the gallery is also adorned on several surfaces with cast ceramic “bricks.” The pieces, which appear as substantial and durable as the construction material, are actually quite lightweight and delicate. The result of an exhortation by one of Ms. Eastman’s graduate instructors to create something new every day, these pieces are exercises in both painting and sculpture, although the sameness of the cast brings the painting element front and center, and that is what varies from dull, drab exercises, to monochromatic ones, to delicate pastels, to deep violent reds, to black nothingness, and even brick-colored bricks. They are surprisingly satisfying and encourage purchase in multiples, an instant and engaging collection.

“Loop Holes” has been extended to close on Sunday.

Gesture Jam, a theatrical figure-drawing class led by Andrea Cote, an artist and educator who lives in Flanders, will take place at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill tomorrow at 6 p.m. Rather than a traditional life-drawing class, Gesture Jam has models posed dramatically in various scenarios.

For tomorrow’s session, Carlos Lama will serve as D.J., while Kate Mueth and the Neo-Political Cowgirls will perform as models. Participants have been asked to bring their own sketchpads and dry media drawing materials. Drinks will be available for purchase through the museum’s cafe. The class costs $10, free for members and students.

The museum will also offer a five-session open studio series led by Linda Capello, an accomplished teaching artist, beginning Monday and continuing through Dec. 15. Participants will practice drawing male and female models through gesture sketches and longer observation. The classes will run from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and all skill levels will be welcomed. The cost is $150, $125 for members.

El Colegio del Cuerpo, a performance and dance group from Colombia currently in residence at the Watermill Center, is offering a free workshop there for all ages on Saturday at 11 a.m. Participants will be taken through a movement class and will learn excerpts from the company’s repertoire. A walking tour of the center’s grounds, building, and collection will follow the workshop, and the group will hold an open rehearsal at 3 p.m.

El Colegio del Cuerpo has been working with various organizations and institutions on the East End, including Bridgehampton Head Start, East End Explorers, the Southampton Intermediate School, the Parrish Art Museum, the Children’s Museum of the East End, and the Watermill Center’s Young Artist Residency Project.

Saturday’s programs are free, but reservations are required for the workshop, tour, and rehearsal and can be made at watermillcenter.org.

The Southampton Cultural Center’s Rising Stars Piano Series will present a concert by Jiayan Sun, a Pianofest artist, on Saturday at 7 p.m. Mr. Sun has won prizes at piano competitions in Toronto, Beijing, Cleveland, and Leeds, England. He will perform Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Sonata No. 1 and Frederic Chopin’s 24 Preludes Op. 28.

Admission is $15, free for students under 21.v

The John Drew Theater Lab will stage the premiere of “Wild Horses,” an original theater piece written by Andrea Goldman, with music by Dani Campos, Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. The free program is a project of the Box Collective, a New York City-based company of artists who develop and present interdisciplinary live performances.

Since showing her work “La Cueca” in 2010 at Art Solar, Esperanza Leon’s gallery in East Hampton, Ms. Goldman and the other members of the collective have been working in Europe and New York City. “For me,” she said, “the Hamptons is where I go to think, to write, to create, to find inspiration.” The group, invited to perform at Guild Hall by Josh Gladstone, the theater’s artistic director, hopes to continue to create work on the East End before taking it on the road.

The characters in “Wild Horses” are struggling to escape from a dusty ghost town. Julia Watt plays a poetic young soul torn between the trash of the trailer park and her love of poetry. The wild horse is a metaphor for her struggle to avoid being “broken” by her circumstances. The piece is movement-focused, more of a visual poem than a play, reflecting the characters’ grasping at a life of some beauty.

Ms. Goldman and Mr. Campos, an internationally recognized Spanish pianist, began to develop “Wild Horses” after Mr. Campos saw the collective’s production of “Sometimes at Night” in Berlin. Sara Fay George and Ms. Goldman will direct the performance, with choreography by Sarah Kenney. Oliver de Rohan and Ms. Watt play the leads.

The performance will be followed by a reception and an opportunity to meet the members of the ensemble.

“Every other line is famous,” whispered an audience member in astonishment to her friend during a performance of the Round Table Theatre Company’s “Hamlet” at Guild Hall on Sunday.

That is true. It’s hard not to smile at lines like “To thine own self be true,” or “Frailty‚ thy name is woman‚” and a dozen other familiar phrases. Round Table has provided a program filled with welcome “fun facts” and timelines about both “Hamlet” and the life of the playwright, which should help Shakespeare virgins to feel more at ease.

Morgan Vaughan, the director, has chosen a timeless time, with costumes by Yuka Silvera that conjure royalty, nobility, and wealth, along with the well-worn clothes of the common man. Brian Leaver’s sets are minimalist, often using Sebastian Paczynski’s impeccable lighting to set the scene. Ms. Vaughan uses the John Drew Theater to its fullest, with adept staging in the aisles and wings that helped prevent the action from becoming stagnant.

For those who have never read “Hamlet” nor seen the many versions of the play, the films, the Klingon version, or the rock opera (featuring the song “He Got It in the Ear”)‚ here is a quick rundown of the plot.  Hamlet (Tristan Vaughan), Prince of Denmark, has returned from studying in Germany to find his father dead and his mother, Queen Gertrude‚ played with regality by Dianne Benson, marrying the king’s brother, Claudius (Jeff Keogh).

Already greatly upset by this (a man marrying his brother’s widow was considered incest at the time), he then meets his father’s ghost, who informs him that the king didn’t die quietly but was poisoned, by none other then his brother, Claudius. At that point, Hamlet transforms from a disillusioned and grumpy young man to a prince whose sole focus is revenge.

In the meantime, Hamlet’s school friends, the courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, dressed amusingly in school uniforms and played with understated comedy by Sawyer Avery and Peter Connolly, have been brought to Elsinore by the king and queen to ascertain Hamlet’s mood.  Polonius, the Lord Chamberlain and fahter to Laertes and Ophelia, blames Hamlet’s bad temper on his love for Ophelia, but when a tryst between the two is arranged Hamlet appears to be distracted by the goings-on at the castle and no longer interested in Ophelia.

A troupe of visiting actors provides Hamlet with the chance to restage a roman a clef of his father’s killing in front of the court, causing Claudius to storm out and express a moment of guilt as he kneels to pray. Finding his uncle thus, Hamlet cannot bring himself to slay him — a scene that Shakespearean scholars have analyzed ad infinitum since the play was first performed. The Round Table Company, in the program, provides an interesting and creditable reason.

From there on, things only get worse for poor Hamlet. He mistakenly kills Polonius. Claudius tries to send him away to England (with plans to have him murdered). His girlfriend goes nuts. Laertes wants him dead. The play was originally called “The Tragedy of Hamlet,” so, let’s face it‚ everybody dies.

An uncut “Hamlet” would run over four hours, so quite a bit has been snipped in this three-hour version‚ mostly nothing that would be missed by today’s audiences (except the end of the last scene featuring Prince Fortinbras — an interesting directorial choice). 

The cast performs wonderfully. Mr. Vaughan is a charming Hamlet — the audience sympathizes with his suffering and indecisiveness as he learns about his father’s death and his mother’s betrayal. His interest in humanity of all kinds shines through, from his “What a piece of work is man” soliloquy to his tender ruminations on the skull of “poor Yorick.” Unlike so many other actors, Mr. Vaughan nails the comedic aspects of the role, but sometimes brushes over the more melodramatic moments, perhaps for reasons outlined below.

Mr. Keough as Claudius is comfortable with the language of Shakespeare and makes a kingly king who seems to show genuine concern for his nephew, but there is a lack of chemistry between the royal couple that makes it difficult to believe that much of anything happens between those “incestuous sheets.”

Fabrienne Botero, a newcomer, is a standout as the somewhat modern Ophelia, who loses her mind when her father dies, and John Tramontana plays Hamlet’s friend Horatio with a wonderful sense of loyalty and care.

But in a play this intense, it is the clowns who rule the day. Josh Gladstone’s Polonius is portrayed with such outrageous strokes, but also with such a depth of humanity, that the audience feels a genuine loss at his death. Can “The Merry Wives of Windsor” and a turn of Mr. Gladstone as Falstaff be far behind?

Evan Daves, last seen at the John Drew in “The Cripple of Inishmaan,” plays both Laertes and the Player Queen. He evoked bursts of giggles from the audience, especially during the play within a play, and later brought a ferocious quality to the returned Laertes bent on revenge.

Michael Bartolli, as both the Player King and the yes man Osric, provides levity during some of the most dramatic moments.

“Brevity is the soul of wit,” Polonius declares — made even more amusing appearing in this, the longest of the Bard’s plays — and it is hard to be economical with words and deeds in a work of this fame and import. Ms. Vaughan has done an admirable job.

However, although the play has been cut down, it is still long, and it seems as though the actors make up for it with shortened reactions. This is a play of bombs being dropped. It seemed that the bombs were often brushed away, and with a cast this good, one can only imagine it was to keep the evening moving steadily.

Nonetheless, this production of “Hamlet” is well worth attending. See it with friends, and prepare to discuss the psychology of the Prince of Denmark over drinks well after the play has finished, as theatergoers have for the past 400 years.

The Public Theater in New York City has installed “Posters for Papp,” an ongoing exhibition of Paul Davis’s artwork for the theater company and its founder, Joseph Papp.

Between 1975 and 1991, Mr. Davis, who lives in Sag Harbor and New York, created 51 posters for productions at the theater’s Astor Place home, the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, and the theater’s residencies at Lincoln Center and on Broadway.

The first commission was for a poster of Sam Waterston as Hamlet. Subsequent works included “The Pirates of Penzance” with Kevin Kline, “The Cherry Orchard” with Irene Worth and Meryl Streep, and “The Threepenny Opera” with Raul Julia. Mr. Davis served as art director for the company from 1984 until Papp’s death in 1991.

Mr. Davis’s work has appeared in most major U.S. publications, including Time, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Fast Company, and Worth. He has had numerous one-man exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout Europe, the United States, and Japan.