Arts

In 1998, Sandy Tolan, an American journalist and author, met Ramzi Aburedwan, a 19-year-old Palestinian musician living at the time with his impoverished grandparents in a refugee camp near Ramallah on the West Bank. That meeting led to a piece on National Public Radio about the young musician with a dream of a career in music and “Children of the Stone: The Power of Music in a Hard Land,” Mr. Tolan’s 2015 book about Mr. Aburedwan and the broader social and cultural context in which his story has unfolded.

“My Lessons From Dogs,” a solo show written and performed by Patrick Christiano and directed by Kate Mueth, will be presented at Guild Hall on Sunday afternoon at 2. The program will benefit the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons.

The Hampton Theatre Company in Quogue has announced its 2016-2017 schedule, which will launch in timely fashion on Oct. 20, less than three weeks before Election Day, with David Mamet’s 2008 Oval Office satire, ”November,” a peek at one day in the life of an egomaniacal and beleaguered president seeing reelection.

Paula Poundstone, whose many honors include a place on Comedy Central’s list of the 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time (“They ran out of people to give it to,” she explained), will bring her act to Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor next Thursday at 8 p.m.

After catching its breath following a busy summer, the Watermill Center is ready to welcome fall with a weekend open house featuring talks and open rehearsals by four resident artists and the final International Brunch of 2016.

The Southampton Cultural Center’s Rising Stars Piano Series will open its fall 2016 season with a concert by Jacopo Giacopuzzi on Saturday at 7 p.m. Born in Italy, he is now living in Los Angeles, where he is working toward a master’s degree in piano performance at the U.S.C. Thornton School of Music.

The Southampton Arts Center will host Telluride Mountainfilm on Tour, a festival of nonfiction stories about environmental, cultural, adventure, and political issues, with programs tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 4 and 7:30. The themes are “Spirit of Adventure,” “Insights on the Refugee Experience,” and “The Human Indomitable Spirit.”

The Alex Ferrone Gallery in Cutchogue has announced an open call for submissions for a juried show of small photographic works, with the circle as the theme. The East Hampton artist Gabriele T. Raacke will have a solo show of work, “Glass Menagerie,” tomorrow at Ashawagh Hall in Springs with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. and remaining on view through Sunday.

With the release on Tuesday of “Pedro ’n’ Pip,” a rock ’n’ roll odyssey about a girl and an octopus who partner to clean up the oceans, Taylor Barton, a singer and songwriter who has released multiple albums, offers a 25-year-old creation in an innovative new form that marries text, images, and sound.

Center Stage at the Southampton Cultural Center will open its 2016-17 season with “Darren Ottati: An Evening of Broadway Ballads,” with shows Sunday and Monday at 7 p.m.

It’s rather odd to think of a show of Minimalism in a place like Guild Hall, which has historically dedicated itself to more homegrown art. Minimalism seems anything but, which is why “Aspects of Minimalism” is exciting and almost a bit naughty, as if the museum were cheating on its partner.

Marcia Previti has immersed herself in intricately detailed spaces filled with harmonious sounds, striking objects, and serene scenery, much of it her own creation — fitting for a former architect who has taken up mixed-media sculpture, singing, and gardening in her retirement.

The Robert Giard Foundation, which supports artists exploring gender issues and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer experience, will host a benefit on Sept. 17 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation in Sagaponack.

“Dear Elizabeth: The Letters of Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell,” a play in letters by Sarah Ruhl, will be performed at Guild Hall by Kathleen Chalfant and Harris Yulin on Saturday at 8 p.m. The friendship between Bishop and Lowell, two of the 20th century’s most notable poets, spanned 30 years and yielded more than 400 letters, from which Ms. Ruhl drew a portrait of the intertwined lives of two very different personalities.

The Joseph Vecsey All Star Comedy Show will return to the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor tomorrow at 8 p.m. with three up-and-coming New York comedians.

The Madoo Conservancy in Saga­ponack has invited the public to picnic on its winter house lawn while watching “Much Ado About Nothing” on Sunday at 4 p.m.

Bastienne Schmidt, a mixed-media artist from Bridgehampton, will talk about and sign copies of her new book, “Typology of Women,” on Saturday at 5 p.m. at BookHampton in East Hampton. “The Second Annual Handmade Furniture Show” will open at Ashawagh Hall in Springs today and continue through Tuesday. A reception will be held Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.

Attention Trekkies! “Beam Me Up: Fifty Years of ‘Star Trek,’ ” Clive Young’s multimedia program that covers the history of the show, will come to the Montauk Library on Sunday at 3:30 p.m.

Alvaro Restrepo, a renowned Colombian choreographer and dancer now in residence at the Watermill Center, will hold a free open rehearsal on Sunday at 4 p.m. at the Southampton Arts Center on Job’s Lane.

The Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill will wrap up its Sounds of Summer series of outdoor music tomorrow afternoon at 5 with its annual Labor Day weekend “Bluegrass and BBQ” celebration.

Today is Andrea Grover’s first day as executive director of Guild Hall, replacing Ruth Appelhof, who is retiring. Ms. Grover, who comes to Guild Hall as an active member of the East End arts community, has already helped transform one local institution, the Parrish Art Museum.

As the Hamptons International Film Festival has grown, so has its commitment, through its signature programs, to films that engage a range of social and political issues. This year’s festival, which will take place Oct. 6 through Oct. 10, will include the 17th iteration of Films of Conflict and Resolution, the second Compassion, Justice, and Animal Rights program, and a new signature program, Air, Land, and Sea.

The Southampton Arts Center will conclude its summer music programs with free outdoor concerts by the HooDoo Loungers on Saturday at 6 p.m. and Jazz on the Steps with Bill Smith on piano and Baron Lewis on trumpet on Sunday at noon.

Guild Hall’s summer season will close this weekend with two very different musical performances. Suzanne Vega, a singer-songwriter whose voice is as distinct as her music, will perform Saturday at 8 p.m. Details of her concert can be found elsewhere on this page.

As the National Park Service celebrates its centennial, Terry Tempest Williams, a conservationist, activist, and writer, asked the question, in an article published in The Los Angeles Times, “Will Our National Parks Survive the Next 100 Years?”

Suzanne Vega, a singer-songwriter who has forged a three-decades-plus career in an ever-shifting musical landscape, said “a mix of old and new songs” from her extensive catalog is in store when she performs at Guild Hall in East Hampton on Saturday at 8 p.m.

Christopher French will have an exhibition of his new work at the Drawing Room in East Hampton. In his new work, symmetry has given way to pointed shafts of refracted color that surge across the canvas from distinct vortices like beams of colored light. The show will open tomorrow and remain on view through Oct. 3. The Southampton Artists Association’s annual Labor Day show is on view through Sept. 11 at the Southampton Cultural Center. A reception will take place Saturday from 4 to 6 p.m.

The media, particularly cable news, loves the horse-race aspect of elections, so much so that they devote hours of airtime to the speculation of who will run for president five minutes after the current president has been inaugurated. This election cycle brought the usual frenzy, but then it trebled with the announcement last year that Donald Trump would run.

A limited number of tickets remain for Bobby Collins’s performance at Bay Street Theater’s Comedy Club in Sag Harbor on Monday at 8 p.m.

Some artists discover their medium and stick with it. Throughout most of her career, Carol Ross has shifted artistic gears with apparent ease between wood reliefs, metal sculpture, drawing, and painting. “I’m an artist who changes a lot,” she said during a recent conversation in Guild Hall’s sculpture garden, where her large aluminum pieces can be seen through Oct. 1. A selection of her wood reliefs is also on view in Guild Hall’s Wasserstein Family Gallery.