Arts

   “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.

Artists Alliance at Ashawagh

    The Artists Alliance of East Hampton, which was founded in 1984 in honor of Jimmy Ernst, will show art by more than 50 of its members at its “Fall Art Exhibit” at Ashawagh Hall in Springs this weekend. Paintings, drawings, sculpture, mixed-media works, and photographs will be on view through Monday. An opening reception will be held on Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m.

Copyright for Artists

Sometimes, late is much better than never. Such is often the case with the last-minute additions to the Hamptons International Film Festival, which can end up being some of the most talked-about films of the year.

Ivories Tinkling

    On Sunday at 3:30 p.m., Anne Tedesco will return to the Montauk Library to perform a concert of classical works for the piano by Bach, Gliere, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Schumann, and Chopin. 

    Ms. Tedesco has taught music history, theory, classical piano, and fine arts since 1982 at St. John’s University in Queens. She and her husband own a house in Montauk.

Nova’s Ark Project wants you.

   The late Nova Mihai Popa — sculptor, painter, thinker — created an open-air museum on Millstone Road in Bridgehampton, and “he badly wanted the community to enjoy the beauty of the art in this glorious setting,” said Tundra Wolf, the project’s executive director, who, with her partner Luna Shanaman, is picking up where Nova left off.

   An abundant harvest of South Fork food, beer, wine, history, art, music, and other entertainment will fill Southampton this weekend during the village’s SeptemberFest, which will kick off with a concert by New Life Crisis under a tent in Agawam Park tomorrow night.

Eric Brown: In Transit

    Glenn Horowitz Bookseller will present “In Transit,” a solo exhibition of paintings, sculpture, and works on paper by Eric Brown, beginning Saturday through Nov. 4.

   On a recent Friday, the new Parrish Art Museum space in Water Mill was a study in contrasts. Completion of the interior was continuing apace, but many discrete spaces already revealed their final state.

    There were soaring side galleries, like chapels, set along a more human-scaled nave-like central hall or spine. Some of these areas looked pristine, white, and ready, while others were still dusty, dirty, and littered with the tools of construction.

National Theatre Live

    Guild Hall will have its first fall presentation of the National Theatre Live series with “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” on Saturday at 8 p.m. The play, which was recorded recently in London, is based on a novel by Mark Haddon and stars Sophie Duval, Nicola Walker, Rhiannon Harper Rafferty, Nick Sidi, and Howard Ward.

   The Hamptons International Film Festival opens its box office today for advance sales of individual tickets. While a program was not available by press time, the festival has announced that it will honor Richard Gere with the Golden Starfish Award for Lifetime Achievement in Acting on Oct. 6.

    The festival, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, will run from Oct. 4 through Oct. 8 in East Hampton and other venues on the South Fork.