A busy weekend at The Church will kick off Friday at 6 p.m. with a celebration of the Sag Harbor cultural center's fifth birthday. "Get to Know Us: Behind the Scenes at The Church" will feature presentations from each member of the staff that will include insights into how things work and the role each plays.
The speakers will be Samuel Havens, workshop and residency manager; Joseph Jagos, exhibition coordinator; Johnnoy Johnson, production assistant; Madeline Maxfield, visitor engagement associate; Casey Kleister Meyer, operations manager; Sheri Pasquarella, executive director; Ariel Ransom, administrative assistant; Kristen Santori, programming and communications manager, and Whodi Warejko, event assistant.
Members of the team will take questions after the introductions, and the evening will conclude with a birthday cake. Tickets are $5, free for members, who are required to R.S.V.P.
Bluegrass will come to The Church on Saturday at 6 p.m. when Lee Clay Johnson, an award-winning novelist and bluegrass musician, will be joined by his family of bluegrass musicians for an evening of music and storytelling. Johnson will weave together music and excerpts from his second novel, "Bloodline," which was recently released by Panamerica.
Set in rural Tennessee, "Bloodline" is a dark comedy that explores masculinity run amok and celebrates femininity's strength and resolve. In a review in the periodical Southwest Review, P.S. Dean wrote, "With 'Bloodline,' Johnson casts a spell of characters on the fringes of society (whether that's in the backwoods or somewhat closer to Lebanon and maybe even the larger Music City metro of Nashville) meeting nefarious and often brutal ends."
Though he was kicked out of high school, Johnson eventually earned a B.A. from Bennington College in Vermont and an M.F.A. from the University of Virginia, where he studied with the writer Deborah Eisenberg. In 2016, he published his first novel, "Nitro Mountain," which won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Johnson will take questions after the performance. Tickets are $25, $22 for members.
The Church will pivot from bluegrass to sea shanties on Sunday afternoon at 4, when David Cataletto will focus on Sag Harbor's history, from whaling to the Watchcase factory, before being joined by the Bonac Shanty Crew, a community band, for a round of sea shanties.
An East Hampton native, Cataletto teaches history and English at East Hampton Middle School. An East Hampton Town Trustee, he is also the chairman of the education committee at the Amagansett Life-Saving Station.
The birthday weekend will conclude Sunday at 5:30 with a casual community dinner. Catered by Saaz restaurant, it will be a family-style buffet located on the studio floor. Space is extremely limited, so advance reservations have been suggested. Tickets are $55; a cash bar will be available.
