Arts

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.

When Jill Musnicki says “I’m very much into nature,” it’s no wonder. A fourth-generation East Ender whose ancestors were Bridgehampton and Sagaponack farmers, the local terrain was her birthright. For the past five years, that legacy has informed her artwork.

Kinnaman and Ramaekers in Bridgehampton will introduce Grace Coddington’s newly issued perfume, “Grace,” with a reception on Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m.

Jazz at Lincoln Center will return to the Southampton Arts Center for a free outdoor concert on Saturday at 4 p.m. The program takes traveling professional jazz ensembles to communities to lead interactive performances for students and families.

The Southampton Cultural Center will present “Broadway Beats,” an evening of Broadway-inspired singing and dancing by Our Fabulous Variety Show, on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. in Agawam Park. Picnics, blankets, and lawn chairs will be welcomed.

See the mysterious paintings of Jennifer Cross at the Peter Marcelle Project in Southampton. Haunting interiors and landscapes, inhabited not by people but by dreamlike objects and images suggest narratives and pique the imagination. A reception is set for Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m. An exhibition of painting and sculpture by Jeff Muhs will open today at Monika Olko Gallery in Sag Harbor and continue through Sept. 13. A reception will be held Saturday evening from 6 to 8.

The Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill will conclude its Jazz en Plein Air season with an outdoor performance by the Philippe Lemm Trio tomorrow evening at 6. Consisting of Mr. Lemm on drums, Jeff Koch on bass, and Angelo Di Loreto on piano, the group will draw from its repertory of traditional jazz, music influenced by progressive rock and classical, and their own arrangements of jazz standards.

It's been 50 years since "Sunshine Superman" was number one on the Billboard charts. Donovan Leitch, the singer-songwriter and 1960s pop sensation, is being celebrated in Los Angeles on Sept. 2. He will open his tour here first, however, at Guild Hall on Aug. 30.

It has been 16 years since supporters of East End Hospice first asked regional artists to create unique works of art from small, unadorned boxes that could be put up for auction to benefit the organization.