Arts

Remember 1975? Those alive that year would have witnessed the fall of Saigon, two assassination attempts on President Gerald R. Ford, the conviction and sentencing of three key Nixon administration officials due to Watergate, and the premiere of “Saturday Night Live.”

The Memorial Day weekend kicks off the summer season with a flood of art openings. Don't miss “A Whale of a Show,” at The Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum with artwork selected by Dan Rizzie and Peter Marcelle.

It’s time to get out the calendars and save the dates for the South Fork’s annual round of summer benefits. Beginning with Planned Parenthood on Sunday and finishing up with the Box Art Auction for East End Hospice at a yet to be determined date in September, the season is full of opportunities to socialize and help out good causes.

Guild Hall will present “The Thirteen Clocks,” a theatrical piece inspired by James Thurber’s novel and adapted by Strangemen & Co., on Saturday at 7 p.m. The free performance will conclude the group’s weeklong residency at the John Drew Theater. A reception with the performers will follow in the Minikes Garden.

Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor is breaking out the big guns during the coming week with Paula Poundstone, the Emmy Award-winning comedian, bringing her stand-up act to the theater on Saturday evening at 8, and the world premiere of “The New Sincerity,” a comedy written by Alena Smith and directed by Bob Balaban, opening on Tuesday and running through June 14.

“Magical Jews: The Life and Times of Great Jewish Magicians,” a free talk by Allan Zola Kronzek about the enormous contribution of Jews to magic from the 1840s through the 1930s, will take place next Thursday at Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor.

Robert Harms makes paintings you want to inhale, lie beside, wallow in. In a little cottage on Little Fresh Pond in Southampton, he bides the time, season by season, absorbing his surroundings through eyes that transmute the air and landscape into a distillation of time and place.

The sixth annual Montauk Music Festival, featuring artists old and new, homegrown and hailing from as far as Texas, begins tonight with an opening party at Gurney’s Inn. From tonight until the festival’s conclusion on Sunday, Montauk will rock to more than 300 performances by some 80 acts at over 30 venues.

“Hay Fever,” Noel Coward’s comedy of bad English manners, will conclude the 30th anniversary season of the Hampton Theatre Company with a run from next Thursday through June 7 at the Quogue Community Hall.

The Rising Stars Piano Series at the Southampton Cultural Center will present a concert by Fei-Fei Dong, a Chinese pianist who won the 2014 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, on Saturday at 7 p.m.

The 2015 art season gets into full swing with some excellent shows opening in May. Don't miss Dan Rizzie at the Peter Marcelle Project in Southampton and join the crowd at the Silas Marder Gallery in Bridgehampton for the “Big Show.”

A screening of the National Theatre Live presentation of Arthur Miller’s play “A View From the Bridge” will take place at Guild Hall on Saturday at 7 p.m.

Over the years, the painterly products of Chuck Close’s photographs have transcended the art world to become part of popular culture, while the source material has been mostly held back from consideration.

After a monthlong shakedown cruise, the White Room Gallery in Bridgehampton will launch officially on Saturday with a 6 to 8 p.m. group exhibition featuring work by Eric Ernst, Jim Gingerich, and Sally Breen, with music by Mama Lee.

Guild Hall will present National Theatre Live’s recorded performance of “The Hard Problem” on Saturday at 7 p.m. The play is the latest by Tom Stoppard, the author of acclaimed plays and screenplays such as “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead ”and “Shakespeare in Love.”

The Perlman Music Program will present a recital by Philip Zuckerman, a violinist and an alumnus of the program, on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Clark Arts Center on Shelter Island.

The Dia Art Foundation will open “Dan Flavin: Icons” at the Dan Flavin Art Institute in Bridgehampton today. The works, created from 1961 to 1964, are the artist’s earliest experiments with light.

The Montauk Library will present a free performance of “Love, Loss, and What I Wore,” a play by Nora and Delia Ephron based on the book by Ilene Beckerman, on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

Guild Hall has extended its footprint, annexing a lot to its south to provide housing for performers and, potentially, artist residencies.

What was once a fixture of the Montauk cultural scene faltered recently after the death of its director in 2013. Ruth Widder ran Music for Montauk for two decades and produced more than 90 free concerts for the greater community.

Daria Rabotkina, a Russian-born pianist who won the 2007 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, will perform tomorrow at 6 p.m. with the Verona Quartet in the Salon Series at the Parrish Art Museum.

From Amagansett to Southampton the East End art world comes to life with solo openings. Guild Hall opens the season with its annual Artist Members Exhibition.

The Hampton Independent Theatre Festival (HITFest) is partnering with Non Disposable Productions (NDP), a new troupe of New York City actors, to present “Shakespeare on Wine,” a one-hour program of wine-related scenes from the Bard’s oeuvre, on May 16 at the Bridgehampton Community House.

The third annual Steinbeck Festival, held in honor of the celebrated author who lived in Sag Harbor from 1955 until his death in 1968, will take place Saturday and Sunday, with events at several venues in the village.

The John Drew Theater Lab will present a free, fully staged performance by Tandy Cronyn of Simon Bent’s play “The Tall Boy” on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. The play, which won best adaptation at the United Solo Theatre Festival last year, was adapted from a short story by Kay Boyle.

It has been almost a year since the publication of “Unstill Life: A Daughter’s Memoir of Art and Love in the Age of Abstraction,” Gabrielle Selz’s book about her parents and the art world in which they held such a prominent place.

Art for Aid is the brainchild of Wendy Wachtel, who opened Walk Tall Gallery in East Hampton in 2007 while at the same time working in international high-end real estate.

The Parrish Art Museum’s Salon Series will continue tomorrow at 6 p.m. with a concert by Kimball Gallagher, an American pianist whose repertoire ranges from Baroque to modern.

Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor will present its second New Works Festival with free readings of plays in development, beginning tomorrow at 7 p.m. with “A Delicate Ship” by Anna Ziegler.

Temple Adas Israel and Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor will present “Tango, A Story With Jews,” a documentary about the events that brought Jews to Buenos Aires in the 19th century.