The Long Island premiere of “The Drawer Boy,” Michael Healey’s play about two farmers whose lives are turned upside down when a young actor comes to visit, will be the third production of the 2012-2013 Hampton Theatre Company season. Opening at the Quogue Community Hall next Thursday, it will run though April 7.

    “The Drawer Boy” takes its inspiration from a 1972 project of Theatre Passe Muraille (“Theater goes through walls”), the influential alternative theater dedicated to creating a distinctly Canadian voice on the stage. That project, called “The Farm Show,” was the result of interviews with Ontario farmers by a group of young actors.

    Written more than 25 years after “The Farm Show,” “The Drawer Boy” first opened in Toronto in 1999 and has since become a modern-day Canadian classic, winning many awards. Filled with humor and sensitivity, it depicts the sometimes unclear divide between life and art and explores the healing powers of storytelling.

    “The Drawer Boy” is directed by Sarah Hunnewell, the company’s executive director, and has a cast of three. Showtimes are Thursdays at 7 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8, and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. for the first and third weekend. There will be two shows on Saturday, March 30, with a matinee added at 2:30; there will be no performance on Easter Sunday, March 31. Tickets cost $25, $10 for students under 21. The company will offer special dinner-theater packages in collaboration with the Southampton, Westhampton Beach, and Hampton Bays libraries. Tickets can be reserved at hamptontheatre.org or OvationTix at 866-811-4111.

    The third of four tours through the Bridgehampton Historical Society’s whaling exhibit, “Bridgehampton Whalers — A Farmer’s Life at Sea,” happens next Thursday at noon at the William Corwith House Museum there. Julie Greene, the society’s curator, will lead the tour. The exhibit celebrates men from Bridgehampton and nearby who went to sea to hunt whales and later retired as farmers. Through excerpts from whaling logs, artwork by Claus Hoie, furniture once belonging to whaling captains, scrimshaw, and exotic mementos brought back from around the world, the danger, excitement, and rewards of hunting the whale are revealed.

    The casual, narrated tour lasts about 40 minutes. The last tour will take place on April 13, a Saturday, at 11:30 a.m. Tours are free and open to all. The exhibit is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. except for holidays.

    All have been invited to dance and party at the Erin Go Mardi Gras Party at Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theatre on Saturday at 8 p.m., which aims to combine Mardi Gras with the fun of St. Patrick’s Day.

    Joe Lauro’s Hoodoo Loungers and Gene Casey and the Lone Sharks will perform.

    Tickets are $15 in advance and can be purchased at the box office or online at baystreet.org. Tickets at the door will be $25. Attendees have been asked to wear their best St. Patrick’s Day green or Mardi Gras finery.

   Life here on the South Fork differs from many similar areas across the country in several ways, one of the most important of which is the level of sophistication in the local art scene. This extends to the performing arts, including theater, even at the nonprofessional level, as is attested to by the Center Stage at Southampton Cultural Center’s current production of “Motherhood Out Loud,” a series of scenes examining modern motherhood in America, directed by the multitalented Michael Disher.

    “Motherhood Out Loud” is no pastiche of pleasantries, or a Norman Rockwell Happy Mother’s Day card. Rather, it wrestles with the gritty realities of giving birth and raising children in the complex world we live in.

    “Motherhood Out Loud” was first envisioned by two New York producers, Susan Rose and Joan Stein. Instead of entrusting the piece to one writer, they asked 14 to contribute short scenes, resulting in a 16-scene show by Leslie Ayvazian, Brooke Berman, David Cale, Jessica Goldberg, Beth Henley, Lameece Issaq, Claire LaZebnik, Lisa Loomer, Michele Lowe, Marco Pennette, Theresa Rebeck, Luanne Rice, Annie Weisman, and Cheryl L. West. In a sense, they are actually 16 short, short plays. (There are only 15 scenes in this production, but more on that later.) “Motherhood Out Loud” debuted at Hartford Stage in 2010, with a New York production at Primary Stages in 2011.

    Most of the scenes are pithy. Many are in monologue form.

    Under the astute direction of Mr. Disher, who also designed the set, his nine-player cast dives into the tricky material with gusto, giving us, for the most part, a smooth and moving production. Dan Becker, Valerie J. DiLorenzo, Adam Fronc, Barbara Jo Howard, Kasia Klimiuk, Joan Lyons, Josephine M. Teresi-Wallace, Edna Winston, and Susan Wojcik star.

    Ms. Wojcik, in “Queen Esther” by Ms. Lowe, comes to terms with the reality that her 7-year-old son prefers high heels and dresses to a baseball uniform and cleats. He could be another Derek Jeter, she muses, “if Derek Jeter were to wear a black dress and pearls.”

    It is funny, but also very serious, and timely, as her son returns home from school bloodied and with a black eye. Her courage in embracing her son, who is dressed as Queen Esther, in front of her temple’s congregation, moves us in the audience to a place where we as a society need to go.

    In “Baby Bird” by Ms. Rebeck, the scene that follows “Queen Esther,” Ms. Teresi-Wallace plays a mother with a biological son, who has chosen to adopt a Chinese baby. Dan Becker heckles her with inane questions about her adopted daughter, such as, is she teaching the girl Chinese and did she go to China for the girl?

    “She’s Chinese. Where else would we get her?” she responds.

    In Mr. Pennete’s “If We’re Using a Surrogate, How Come I Am the One With Morning Sickness,” Mr. Fronc plays a neurotic (“I once had to see a therapist to break up with my therapist”) father-to-be, one half of a male couple waiting on a surrogate mother’s delivery of their baby. His initial plan is to take the baby away from the birth mother as soon as it is born. But when he sees the newborn (“It’s a gay-be!” he says) he hands her, instead, to the birth mother.

    The first act finishes with Ms. Howard in Ms. LaZebnick’s “Michael’s Date,” in which Ms. Howard describes driving her autistic son to the movie theater for his first date with a girl. Things don’t go well, particularly in the car ride back to the girl’s house after the film. When the girl says she liked the leading lady, the son replies, “She sucked.”

    Alone in the car, the mother momentarily lashes out at the son. It is a moving, truthful moment, finely handled here.

    The second act picks up with the same energy and insight, looking at mothers as their children grow.

    I didn’t feel drawn into the production until the hilarious fourth scene, “New in the Motherhood” by Ms. Loomer, in which Ms. Howard and Ms. Klimiuk exchange barbs by the sand box with Ms. DiLorenzo, a young mother with attitude.

    Ms. DiLorenzo is a talented actor who finds the humor and pathos in her scenes without ever straining. She finishes the show in Ms. Weisman’s “My Baby,” a scene that completes the circle of motherhood, as she reflects on her newborn baby.

    There are some rough spots in this production, particulary at the opening. “Fast Birth Fugue,” also by Ms. Lowe, has three mothers to be played Ms. Teresi-Wallace, Ms. Wojcik, and Joan Lyons, in hospital gowns, moments before giving birth, groaning and cursing.

    The scene, as performed, did not work for me or for most of the audience at the Sunday matinee, and this was not your “blue-haired” matinee crowd from days of yore.

    My companion suggested pacing, but it felt to me as if you could race through the scene like a thoroughbred and get nowhere fast.

    In its original production, the play was done with a four-person cast, in 16 scenes. One scene has been omitted here, Lameece Issaq’s “Nooah’s List,” which, according to the “Motherhood Out Loud” Web site, focused on how an Arab-American mother deals with her daughter when she begins to menstruate.

    The original New York four-person cast included an actress of color, who played the role of the mother in the missing scene. Despite the sophistication of the Hamptons, one thing seems to be missing from its theater community — color. It would be nice to see the faces on stage reflect the world I see around me, but, having said that, “Motherhood Out Loud” is a mostly enjoyable night at the theater.

    The production runs through March 24, Thursday nights at 7:30, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2:30.

   The Art of Song series of Bridgehampton Museum Parlor Jazz concerts will look at the “Songs of Daring Dames” on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. The performance will feature Karen Oberlin, an award-winning and critically acclaimed vocalist, backed by Jane Hastay on piano and Peter Martin Weiss on bass. The songs by and about women are in honor of Women’s History Month.

    The concert will take place at the archives building near the southeast corner of Ocean Road and Montauk Highway. Tickets cost $25 and can be purchased online at bridgehamptonhistoricalsociety.org.

   Brian and Michael LeClerc, brothers who suffer from a genetic disease that causes blindness, have not lost sight of their dream to “make a splash” out here on the East End, they said in an interview on Saturday. Their goal is to “play good, interesting music that makes crowds happy,” Brian said. They play a combination of unique and challenging covers of songs they grew up with, mixed with their own originals.

    Born in Southampton, the brothers have lived on the South Fork since childhood and have played together as well as separately in bands since their teenage years — Stress Industry with Brett King, for one, which Brian, who plays guitar, said once won a statewide battle of the bands contest.

    Their blindness is not very noticeable. Retinitis pigmentosa, a rare, degenerative, hereditary disease, does not result in any outward effect on the eyes that can be easily detected. “I fake it pretty good,” Brian said. He admitted, however, that when other band members go offstage to greet the audience after a show, he is sometimes “stuck up onstage” without that option.

    Brian is completely blind. After a slow progression since his late 20s, he now sees only occasional fragments of light. Michael can still see shadows and shapes. The condition led to the revocation of his driver’s license four years ago.

    Musical skills apparently run in the family. Their mother and aunt were radio stars known as the Moylan Sisters, who had their on-air debut in 1939, when they were just 5 and 7 years old. Their success continued through the World War II years, and at one time they had the second most popular show on radio. Their grandfather, whom the brothers called “a virtuoso,” would tune the family piano by ear and arrange the Moylan Sisters’ music.

    Today, “[Paul] McCartney tunes help me to be a better player,” Michael said. After the LeClercs performed the song “3 Legs” on Feb. 23 with their band, the Hot Pockets, at Crossroads Music’s “On the Air” show in Amagansett, Cynthia Daniels thanked them for the tune and for “staying so true to ‘Ram,’ ” the only album by Paul and Linda McCartney.

    “We are all Beatles-heads,” Michael said of the band. He said they are able to take on difficult material that he and his brother’s previous bands “couldn’t touch,” what with the musical abilities of Sean Rafferty and Christopher Walsh, a reporter for The Star. Michael, the band’s bassist, said they play “interesting, deeper cuts that other bands don’t attempt,” including songs from “Abbey Road.” It’s “challenging material,” he said, “especially for a blind bassist.”

    In addition to writing original music like “Three Mile Harbor,” the musicians enjoy playing covers of Led Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers, and the Rolling Stones. (Mr. Rafferty, who started the band, is creative not only with music and lyrics but also with food, as the chef at Indian Wells Tavern in Amagansett.)

    “One day it will be dark all the time,” said Michael, who is preparing for what he considers inevitable by relearning the bass without looking at it. A glimpse of hope exists with the research being done into adaptive goggles and a computer chip for the retina, he said.

    Aside from watches that announce the time, neither of the LeClercs uses gadgets such as those that detect color or read aloud the words on a computer screen. Brian reads Braille, but it is very difficult to learn as an adult, he said.

    Michael’s adaptation involves regular visits to his dojo, Third Eye Insight, for martial arts, meditation, and yoga, and to Helen Keller Services for the Blind for tips on how to get around safely. Training for sighted guides is also available there, and those who seek to extend the courtesy of helping are made aware of what can be dangerous, Brian explained. One example is not to open car doors for visually impaired people, but instead lead them to the handle so they can orient themselves.

    Similarly, with a chair at a table, he said, “Don’t pull the chair out, lead their hand to the back of the chair.” Otherwise, the brothers said, “don’t worry about us. . . . If we need help, we’ll ask. We know our limitations.”

    The band, formed last June, hopes to be part of the Montauk Music Festival in May, and can be found on the Web site ReverbNation.com as “Fabhotpockets.”

    So far they’ve performed a few times at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett, where they also practice, and are booked there for a 10 p.m. show on March 29. They have also played at 230 Elm in Southampton, Gosman’s Dock in Montauk, and the Montauk Yacht Club. On Saturday they’ll give a 10 p.m. show at Wolfie’s Tavern in Springs.

   Cynthia Daniels has been very busy. When not recording Broadway cast albums in a New York studio, she is mixing those projects at her own MonkMusic Studios in East Hampton or producing a local artist’s recording or hosting recording sessions for the likes of Paul McCartney or Beyoncé.

    Several times per year, she takes a remote recording rig to Crossroads Music in Amagansett, records several local artists, and mixes the recordings at MonkMusic Studios for later broadcast on WPPB, Peconic Public Broadcasting. For local artists especially, a professional with Ms. Daniels’s degree of passion, artistic skills, and technical expertise is a rare and valuable find.

    It’s all in a day’s work for the two-time Grammy Award-winning producer-engineer who served an invaluable apprenticeship at New York’s legendary (and long-defunct) A&R Recording, under equally legendary producer-engineers such as Phil Ramone and Elliot Scheiner.

    On Friday, March 15, at 7 p.m., Ms. Daniels’s career will enter a new realm with a party to launch MonkMusic Records, a new music label. “YoungBlood,” a full-length album by the Long Island band InCircles, is the label’s inaugural release, an in-house project that is likely to reach far beyond the studio walls within which it was created. Along with several other talented local bands including Jet Set Renegades, InCircles will celebrate the release of “YoungBlood” with a performance at East Hampton Bowl.

    It is true that the World Wide Web has reduced the imbalance between the handful of remaining major-label music labels — each a transnational corporation driven more by quarterly profit statements than discovering and nurturing talent — and the independent artist of limited financial means. With a laptop and some inexpensive hardware, anyone can record in any physical space, and distribute their music to — in theory — a worldwide audience.

    But knowing how to press the “record” button on a digital audio workstation does not make one an engineer, and the predictable result has been a glut of poorly crafted, mediocre music, albeit with the occasional gem shining through.

    Ms. Daniels’s participation in “YoungBlood,” however, provides InCircles an advantage over bands similarly committed to rising above the cacophony of independent artists clamoring to be heard. She produced, recorded, and mixed the album, and has committed herself, a small team of associates, and her reputation to the success of a band that already has its collective hands full with its own commitments: to performing, booking tours, and promoting itself with the support and guidance of its label.

    “I am disappointed that artists of all kinds are not able to make money from their art as much as they were,” Ms. Daniels said at MonkMusic Studios on Friday. “I’m not disappointed that there’s a sense of meritocracy and democracy that goes along with the new model.”

    Ms. Daniels admits to a degree of cynicism for her chosen field, but anyone who has spent as much time in the music business as she has and isn’t cynical cannot have been paying attention. She described an artist’s ultimate goal in the pre-Internet era as “a record-label deal where they will take every bit of your royalties and own your soul, and you’ll never make a penny but you will be famous until they decide you’re not.” At the same time, she said, “Music is such a beautiful, huge world, and my whole purpose in life is to get to know it and love it and revere it.”

    MonkMusic Records will not operate within the traditional model, which she described as building a roster and hoping that it will produce some hits among the misses. To date, the label houses one artist, and additions will, by design and necessity, be restricted.

    “The main reason I want to have a record label for select artists is not because I enjoy administration in any way,” she said. “What interests me most is this: For many, many years, I’ve worked with people who invest huge amounts of time and money into creating songs, then we produce them, make a CD, and then I say, ‘Good luck.’ I wanted to finally become involved in the after-process of a music project, and figure out the different ways and means of the digital download channels. I didn’t think it was funny anymore to hand somebody a CD and say, ‘Congratulations, you’ve just finished the easy part.’ ”

    Creative minds, goes an old saying, are rarely tidy, and musicians are not typically associated with business acumen. “I’ve been in the business a long time. I can benefit some people, I’m sure of it,” Ms. Daniels said. “I can continue producing records for people. Maybe there’s a hit, maybe there’s not, but what if I could really help somebody with the hard part, and let them do what they do creatively and go on the road?”

    MonkMusic Records artists will have to create original music and be fully committed to promoting that music through a rigorous performance schedule. Of InCircles, she said, “I just want them to get to the next level, and maybe the one after that. That requires some support.”

    One aspect of a music project that all of her clients enjoy is a high-quality production. On Friday, she was methodically, almost obsessively — in a positive sense — comparing mixes of “YoungBlood” tracks as they were routed through compressors, one a tube-powered piece of hardware, the other a software “plug-in.” Her studio was designed by John Storyk, a revered architect who designed Electric Lady Studios for Jimi Hendrix, among thousands of others, and it is stocked with equipment comparable to the industry’s top commercial rooms. Her Grammy Awards, including best cast album for her mix of “The Producers,” ably demonstrate her technical and artistic chops. Ms. Daniels, said Jewlee Trudden, the singer and guitarist of InCircles, “has got some super powers.”

    But ultimately, said Ms. Daniels, “you have to get out there and play. So many people try, but you can’t just make your music available on iTunes, you need to promote it. The moral support of having a team behind you is, I think, critical to an artist’s level of anxiety. Jewlee works her ass off on behalf of her band. Together, we’re figuring out from this first release the most streamlined approach to reaching as far as possible.”

    Simultaneously, Ms. Daniels stays busy in the studio she opened in August 2011. Recent mixes were for the cast recording of the Broadway revival of “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” and a ballet by Ann Reinking, a dancer and choreographer known for her choreography work and relationship with the late Bob Fosse. In January, she traveled to Anaheim, Calif., to attend the National Association of Music Merchants Show, an annual trade show that draws some 100,000 attendees from around the world and in recent years has hosted another annual event, the Technical Excellence and Creativity Awards. MonkMusic Studios, a nominee in the studio design project category, lost to DreamWorks Animation Studios but, she said, “it was fun and a great honor to be part of, and something that will only happen once in the lifetime of a studio.”

    The imminent release of a rock ’n’ roll record on her own label, the recording and mixing of Broadway music (“Pippin,” returning to Broadway, is an upcoming project), the premiere, last week, of the ballet she recorded and mixed the music for, and the recent TEC Award nomination, said Ms. Daniels, “has me feeling pretty good about the state of affairs of MonkMusic.”

    But there is no rest for a successful music professional. Soon, the last power chord will fade at the March 15 release party at East Hampton Bowl. “Like any celebration,” said Ms. Daniels, “you wake up the next day and hit the street again.”

    Erin Hill, a singer and harpist, will return to the Montauk Library on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. for “A Celtic Celebration,” a free concert in which she will be accompanied by Mike Nolan on pedal steel guitar.

    Ms. Hill is also an actress, most recently appearing alongside Bebe Neuwirth and Christina Ricci as First Fairy in the Classic Stage Company’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” She has played and sung with Kanye West, Moby, Sinead O’Connor, Enya, A-ha, Cyndi Lauper, Joan Osborne, and Levon Helm, and has played solo at the Royal Albert Hall.

    She also writes pop tunes with science-fiction lyrics and performs them with her band, Erin Hill and her Psychedelic Harp. USA Today premiered her sci-fi music video “Lookout, Science,” which is the follow-up to her “Giant Mushrooms” music video.

    Center Stage at the Southampton Cultural Center will present the play “Motherhood OUT LOUD” from next Thursday through March 24 at its Levitas Center for the Arts. Michael Disher directs. The play entrusts the subject of motherhood to a collection of American writers who aim to shatter traditional notions about parenthood, unveil its inherent comedy, and celebrate the deeply personal truths that span and unite generations.

    “Motherhood OUT LOUD,” which premiered at Primary Stages, was conceived by Susan R. Rose and Joan Stein. It contains monologues written by Leslie Ayvazian, Brooke Berman, David Cale, Jessica Goldberg, Beth Henley, Claire LaZebnick, Lisa Loomer, Michele Lowe, Marco Pennette, Theresa Rebeck, Luanne Rice, Annie Weisman, and Cheryl L. West. The cast includes Dan Becker, Valerie J. DiLorenzo, Adam Fronc, Barbara Jo Howard, Kasia Klimiuk, Joan Lyons, Josephine Wallace, Edna Winston, and Susan Wojcik.

    Performances will take place on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. General admission is $22, $12 for students under 21 with ID. Group rates are available and reservations are encouraged. Tickets can be purchased by telephone at 287-4377 or online at scc-arts.org.

    Guild Hall will screen a new production of Wagner’s “Parsifal,” starring Jonas Kaufmann in the title role, presented by The Met: Live in HD, on Saturday beginning at noon. The opera is staged by the director François Girard in his Met debut.

    The cast of Wagnerians assembled for the meditative opera about sin, redemption, pain, and healing includes René Pape as Gurnemanz, the wise knight; Katarina Dalayman as Kundry, the wayward temptress; Peter Mattei as Amfortas, the wounded king, and Evgeny Nikitin as Klingsor, the evil wizard. Daniele Gatti conducts Wagner’s powerful and complex score. Eric Owens, a bass-baritone who played the Niebelung Alberich in the Met’s 2010 production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, hosts the transmission and conducts backstage interviews with the stars. The running time is approximately 330 minutes, including two intermissions.

    Tickets cost $22, $20 for members, and $15 for students. Those supporting Guild Hall’s screenings of The Met: Live in HD with a gift in addition to their Guild Hall ticket purchase have been invited to attend the Operatif series of talks by Victoria Bond, a composer and speaker. The 30-minute talk begins one hour before each opera screening.