Arts

   Previews of “Murder Ballad,” a new rock musical about a love triangle gone horribly wrong, commenced on Tuesday at the newly re-launched Studio at Stage II at the Manhattan Theatre Club. Set in New York City, the show opens Nov. 15 and is scheduled to run through Dec. 2, and features a combination of traditional and cabaret-style seating, with the actors moving throughout the entire 150-seat space during the performance.

The Crucible’

    Beginning on Tuesday, the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor will present “The Crucible” as part of its Literature Live! series of plays taken from the core curriculum of American schools. The play, by Arthur Miller, will be staged for school groups on weekdays and for the public on weekends. A special matinee at 2 p.m. will be performed on Nov. 24 in addition to that evening’s closing performance.

    The 1952 play is about the Salem witch trials between 1692 and 1693 and is an allegory of the Communist “witch hunts” of Joseph McCarthy.

   Inda Eaton celebrated her newest CD, “Go West,” by doing just that on a road trip from New York City to Los Angeles with stops including Philadelphia, Phoenix, Boulder, Colo., and Casper, Wyo. After an “epic drive from Milwaukee in full trucker mode,” she arrived home in Amagansett last weekend in time to perform on Friday night at Guild Hall at the “Way Out East” show with Caroline Doctorow and Nancy Atlas.

“Trucker mode gets the job done at the expense of all rational thought and life training,” she said on her blog.

Facing the Portrait at Ross

    The Ross School gallery in East Hampton will exhibit contemporary portrait paintings in a show opening tomorrow with a reception from 4 to 6 p.m.

    “Face Off” will feature the work of Sydney Albertini, Jack Ceglic, John Hardy, Christa Maiwald, and Christina Schlesinger. The show was organized by students in Jennifer Cross’s museum studies class — Julian Fava, Rebecca Hamilton, Jeheli Odidi, Hongjie Zhu, and Sun Zhehai.

Guild Hall will revisit the much praised and beloved photography of Fritz Leddy on Saturday with the opening of “Fritz Leddy, Part 2,” a new selection from the more than 2,000 negatives the former East Hampton Village police chief left behind

Journey in Song

    A unique and powerful night out has been promised for tomorrow’s event subtitled “Journey in Song,” with Inda Eaton, Nancy Atlas, and Caroline Doctorow. The three local powerhouse female musicians will join together onstage at the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall. The ticket price is $20 for an evening of Americana, folk, country, and rock. All three are popular performers, “great songwriters, and fun people,” according to Ms. Eaton.

   The museum at Guild Hall is offering a bit of something for everyone this season with the opening of four shows in its various galleries.

    Those familiar with Linda Stein’s artwork might be surprised to find needles, thread, and fabrics lying around her TriBeCa and Northwest Woods studios. Ms. Stein, whose earlier works were often composed of such materials as driftwood, drawer knobs, and engraving plates, is now making what she calls “bullyproof” vests.

    On the one hand, the predominantly cotton vests stand in contrast to her earlier works; on the other, the transition is all too natural.

   “Inherit the Wind,” a play based on the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial and written in the 1950s in reaction to McCarthyism, has vital resonance for our own era, particularly on the eve of a national election. The tight and well-acted production by Michael Disher for Center Stage at the Southampton Cultural Center is well worth seeing, not only as a diversion but for its underlying message.

   To look behind the scenes of an event that you’ve come to look forward to, large or small, and find the efforts of one person holding it all together can be surprising. If, that is, it isn’t the new normal in this constrained age. Poetry Pairs at Guild Hall regularly brings top-flight readers here while adding a touch of the literary to that institution’s otherwise varied lineup. Thanks to Fran Castan.

    The series has essentially been her baby since 2007 — “to the point of exhaustion and no money,” she said, only half-kidding, over the weekend from her house in Springs.

Retreat Art Benefit

    A juried art exhibition benefiting the Retreat will open at the Richard Demato Fine Arts gallery in Sag Harbor on Saturday with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. On view will be the work of 25 finalists chosen by Christina Strassfield and Kathryn Markel from more than 300 entries.

Watermill Center Events

    The seventh annual Artist Residency Program at the Watermill Center will begin with residency events tomorrow at 6:30 p.m. and Saturday at 5:30 p.m.

His Gramercy Park apartment comes complete with a northern exposure to the Empire State Building, but it’s not a view Richard Rutkowski enjoys often.

    Whether in Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, Paris, Scotland, Japan, or even the house he inherited from his father in Water Mill, he has racked up a lion’s share of frequent-flier miles. As a director and cinematographer, husband, and father, the East Hampton native has had a vagabond existence for the past several years.

I suppose all of its legions of fans have their own favorites at Breadzilla in Wainscott. For me it’s the oatmeal sunflower-seed bread, just about the best loaf I’ve ever had. Whether it is lunch, dessert, or a loaf of bread, the high quality shines through.

    The same can be said for the garden, narrow strips alongside two of its walls and other beds in the front enclosing a circular lawn where customers relax and enjoy their treats. It may be small, but the garden packs a big punch, with wave following wave of gorgeous, saturated color all season long.

Living the Abstract Life

    “Life in the Abstract,” a group show featuring work by Bob Bachler, Dru Frederick, Barbara Groot, John Haubrich, and Fulvio Massi, will open on Saturday afternoon at Ashawagh Hall in Springs. A reception will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. 

    Mr. Bachler is a ceramist inspired by Asia. Ms. Frederick is a painter of landscapes in an abstracted impressionist style, Ms. Groot’s abstraction is inspired by nature. Mr. Haubrich’s abstraction comes from his inner life. Mr. Massi’s focus is on line.

   It was a short red carpet that led into Guild Hall on Saturday night in East Hampton. Our Home, Sweet Home squatted next door to the 300-year-old buildings of the Mulford Farm just down the street in the gloaming. This was not Hollywood, not the “fishbowl” Richard Gere would tell the audience he disliked about the left coast.

    In his opening remarks as master of ceremonies for the Hamptons International Film Festival’s Golden Starfish Awards ceremony, Alan Cumming quipped that “Golden Starfish sounded like an S.T.D. It seems a little dirty.” Yet the ceremony was an overall sober affair that recognized and expressed gratitude for the festival’s 20th year while bestowing the traditional honors and several new awards for this year.

‘Kook’ Surf Film Wins

    Danny DiMauro and Tin Ojeda have won best short film and viewers choice for short film for their movie “Kook Paradise,” about the insane popularity of Montauk’s Ditch Plain as a surfing destination despite its inconsistent surf conditions.

    The film and its makers were featured in The Star in August.

Return of the Met

    Guild Hall will begin its fall program of simulcasts of the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday at 1 p.m. with a screening of a new production of Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore.”

   The Round Table Theatre Company and Academy, a new classical theater ensemble, will hold its first staged reading on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at LTV Studios in Wainscott. A full production of “Macbeth” is planned for January.

    With outdoor summer productions of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by the Hamptons Independent Theater Festival and Naked Stage, and the Green Theater Collective doing its own pared down Shakespeare performances, there is an embarrassment of riches after a very dry period for the Bard on the East End.

    Anyone who followed the story of the grisly murder of Ted Ammon and its aftermath had to wonder at one point: “What happened to the children?”

    Mr. Ammon was bludgeoned to death in his East Hampton house at 59 Middle Lane in October 2001. Generosa Ammon, his estranged wife at the time, married Daniel Pelosi, the man who was ultimately convicted of his murder. They eventually split up and a month later, in 2003, she died of breast cancer.

Sainz at Ashawagh

    Francisco Sainz will be featured in an exhibition this weekend at Ashawagh Hall in Springs. Beginning tomorrow, the artwork of Sainz, who died in 1998, will be shown with that of Susan Bradfield, Jennifer Cross, Monica Enders, Lily Kot, Teri Kennedy, Christine Newman, Maria Pessino, Gabriele Raacke, and Athos Zacharias.

   Stevie Nicks charmed a capacity audience at the Bay Street Theatre on Sunday, where she discussed “In Your Dreams — Stevie Nicks,” documenting the making of her 2011 album. The film premiered at the Sag Harbor Cinema following the talk as part of the Hamptons International Film Festival.

    Ms. Nicks is best known for the stratospheric success of Fleetwood Mac and subsequent hits as a solo artist including “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” “Edge of Seventeen (Just Like the White Winged Dove),” and “Stand Back.”

    The Watermill Center has announced its Fall 2012 residency artists. Each year, the organization invites artists to use its buildings and grounds as a laboratory for their visual and performance art practice and projects.

    “Local food, spoken word, and foot-stomping music” will take over the fields at Shelter Island’s Sylvester Manor Educational Farm this weekend. Barn dancing, storytelling, and theater will also be part of Saturday’s attractions at the Plant and Sing Festival, as will all things organic, from planting to harvesting to culinary delights.

Perlman in Fall

    The Perlman Music Program on Shelter Island will present alumni recitals and works-in-progress concerts in the program’s Kristy and James H. Clark Arts Center this fall. The alumni recitals will be on Saturday and Nov. 17 at 7:30 p.m. This week’s concert will feature Molly Carr on viola and Yannick Rafalimanana on piano performing works by Rebecca Clarke, Edward Elgar, and Franz Schubert. Tickets cost $20 in advance, $25 at the door.

   A concert featuring the Gawler Family and Bennett Konesni of Shelter Island’s Sylvester Manor will take place on Sunday at 2 p.m. in the meetinghouse of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Fork in Bridgehampton.

   The Gawlers, who hark back to folk traditions from throughout the world, are known for their ballads and more raucous fiddle tunes. Edith Gawler has brought her new husband, Mr. Konesni, to the group. He plays ancient work songs on his banjo and guitar.

    With so many films to choose from, how does one make a choice among the smaller, independent films that may never make it to distribution? The following is an opinionated sampling of the feature films available for preview before the festival.

“Big Boys Gone Bananas!*”

Fredrik Gertten

Southampton, Saturday, 1:45 p.m.; East Hampton, Monday, 8:45 p.m.

There are a number of films this year made or contributed to by South Fork natives or part-timers

    There are not many pieces like “Dandelion Clock” to be seen around the South Fork, and that is both too bad and kind of wonderful. The reason it is wonderful is that the “interactive immersive installation,” in the words of the artist, John Carpenter, remains on view at the Silas Marder Gallery in Bridgehampton through this weekend, and it would be a good idea to see it.