Arts

A political season with many candidates hoping to distinguish themselves in the race for their party’s nomination has created little light but a great deal of heat in American discourse. Most of the smoke of the campaign is traveling well north and west of here (the New York State federal primary election is not until April 18). Yet many artists on the South Fork and farther afield have taken note of the acrimony, and their reactions now hang at the White Room Gallery in Bridgehampton.

“The All Star Comedy Show” will return to Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theater tomorrow at 8 p.m. with the guest comedians Kyle Grooms (“Chappelle Show,” “Last Comic Standing”), Oscar Collazos (Comedy Central, XL Sirius Radio), and Brendan Sagalow, a New York City comedy club regular. As he has for the past three years, Joseph Vecsey will host.

The graceful, whitish curves of the small ceramic bowls and cups found a gentle illumination while sitting upon a sun-drenched shelf that ran across the windowpanes of the Clay Art Studios of the Hamptons on a recent Thursday afternoon.

For its second production of the season, the Hampton Theatre Company in Quogue has put “Dead Accounts” by Theresa Rebeck on the table — along with an outrageous assortment of foodstuffs. A tale filled with moral dilemmas that will have audiences debating long after they leave, the evening buzzes along quickly and smoothly, sort of like that “very special episode” of a well-loved sitcom, where something serious goes down even in the midst of the laughs.

The JDTLab, Guild Hall’s program devoted to presenting work by performing artists from the East End and, occasionally, beyond, will begin its third season on Tuesday evening at 7:30 with a free staged reading of “Extinction,” a new play by Gabe McKinley that explores the evolution of friendships. Subsequent programs will include two new musicals, a one-artist show, three plays, and an immersive deconstruction of the Andromeda myth.

The Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill will present the regional premiere of “Fieldworks,” a program of seven short documentaries that explore the nature of socially engaged art, tomorrow at 6 p.m.

Last week’s announcement of the Academy Award nominations for 2015 films included a number with connections to the South Fork.

Solo exhibitions by Ashley Carter and David B. Smith will be at the Halsey Mckay Gallery in East Hampton through March 9. Christian Little examines a voyeur culture preoccupied with sex and drama at the Sara Nightingale Gallery in Water Mill. A reception will happen Jan. 30 from 5 to 7 p.m.

“Sordid Lives,” a black comedy by the Texas-born writer, director, and producer Del Shores, will open this evening at 7:30 at the Southampton Cultural Center and run through Jan. 31. The play premiered in Los Angeles in 1996 and won 14 Drama-Logue Awards.

Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor has announced that Steven Todrys has been elected chairman of its board of trustees.

The Met: Live in HD will return to Guild Hall with Bizet’s opera “Les Pecheurs de Perles” on Saturday at 1 p.m. Premiered in Paris in 1863, the opera was last performed at the Met in 1916, with Enrico Caruso, Frieda Hempel, and Giuseppe De Luca in the lead roles.

The Hampton Theatre Company in Quogue will hold open auditions at the Quogue Community Hall on Jan. 24 and Jan. 25 from 6 to 8 p.m. for “Lost in Yonkers,” Neil Simon’s award-winning comedy about two young boys coming of age in a zany family in 1942.

The Watermill Center will hold two open rehearsals on Saturday afternoon. Boomerang, a physically nuanced dance and performance group created in 2012 by Matty Davis, Kora Radella, and Adrian Galvin, will show a new work commissioned by Dixon Place on the Lower East Side, where it will premiere in March.

A political cartoonist, graphic novelist, and author known for his intensely critical view of the American government takes a positive turn to support an "outsider" candidate for President.

At a time when Iowa is dominating the headlines because of its imminent caucuses to help select the next president, the sobering differences between the mores and beliefs of middle America and those of the coastal elites could not be clearer.

The Shelter Island Presbyterian Church will present a community sing-in of Handel’s “Messiah” on Sunday at 3 p.m.

The Perlman Music Program, which holds its Summer Music School on Shelter Island, has received an Art Works award of $50,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the school.

For 30 years, Alexis Rockman has rendered the natural world, producing both detailed oil paintings depicting the dystopian consequences of climate change, genetic engineering, and industrial pollution, and more immediate field drawings of plants and animals encountered on his travels.

For several years Daniel Jones has been photographing the East End. Based in Southold, he has captured the North Fork waterways as well as Cooper's Beach and Flying Point in Southampton.

There is a good deal of excitement at the Bay Street Theater in advance of its 25th season, so much so that Scott Schwartz, the artistic director, has already announced two of its upcoming summer productions just on the cusp of 2016.

Laurie Anderson will be at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill on Friday, Jan. 8, for a screening of her film “Heart of a Dog.”

Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor has welcomed back Nancy Atlas for another winter season of Fireside Sessions.

hristian Scheider will present a two-day mini-marathon of the cinematic work of Jacques Tati at the Amagansett Library this weekend.

Ned Smyth doesn’t remember his first visit to the Louvre, since he was 18 months old at the time. Years later, his parents told him that he ran ahead of them as they approached the entrance. Once inside, they found him on his knees, genuflecting.

A reception will take place Saturday at the Tulla Booth Gallery in Sag Harbor from 5 to 7 p.m for the photographer Daniel Jones. A group show, “Winter Light: East End Artists,” organized by Arlene Bujese, will be on view at the Southampton Cultural Center from Tuesday through Feb. 15. A reception will be held on Jan. 16 from 5 to 7 p.m.

“Life is brief and time is a thief,” Michael Weiskopf sings on “Love & Entropy,” his just-released album. “There’s no time left for the blues.”

Ten years ago the Metropolitan Opera launched its Live in HD series with Julie Taymor’s production of Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute.” Guild Hall will present an encore screening of the opera on Saturday at 1 p.m.

For those who prefer Sammy Cahn or Cole Porter to Mozart, the East Hampton Library is offering “Celebrating Sinatra at 100” on Saturday at 2 p.m.

For those who love music, the Christmas season can present a conflicted situation. Often, a favorite carol or album is essential to enjoying the season and to connecting current celebrations to those of years past. Many music lovers seek out and delight in annual performances by dependable ensembles of particular works, such as “The Nutcracker” or Handel’s “Messiah,” or pull out a collection of CDs that only sees the light of day during the portion of the year with the least daylight.

Gabriele Raacke, who grew up in a small village in the Black Forest near Freiburg, Germany, wanted to be a bookseller. To that end she attended the booksellers school in Frankfurt, which offered a three-and-a-half-year program required for anybody who wanted to work in a bookstore or publishing house.