In July, along with warmer weather and mind-bending traffic, the benefit party season is kicking into high gear, with two of the summer's more glittering events set for Sag Harbor's Bay Street Theater and the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill.
Bay Street will lead off on July 8 with a format that highlights the theater's interior, including spaces normally seen only by performers. With cocktails and small plates in hand, guests will be free to wander hallways and rooms filled with costumes, wigs, set pieces, and props, before settling down at cafe tables for award presentations and a performance of "Where Did We Go Right?" The program is a celebration of songs and scenes from "The Producers," "Victor/Victoria," "Plaza Suite," and others.
This year's Lifetime Achievement Award winners are Julie Andrews, who will receive the honor via video, and Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, who will be at the theater in person. Carol Konner is the philanthropic honoree.
The performance, directed by Will Pomerantz, the theater's associate artistic director, will feature Derrick Davis, a Broadway star who played Coalhouse Walker in Bay Street's 2022 production of "Ragtime." Musical direction will be by James Bassi.
Other stars of former Bay Street hits who will perform that night include Samantha Massell (Rosalind Franklin in "Double Helix"); Max Chlumecky (James Watson in "Double Helix"), and Lora Lee Gayer (Mother in "Ragtime"), as well as Matthew Scott, who starred on Broadway in "An American in Paris."
Speaking of stars, Isaac Mizrahi will be on hand to oversee the evening's live auction, with offerings including a Viking River Cruise in Europe, Asia, or Egypt; a lunch-and-wine pairing for two at Eric Ripert's Michelin three-star Le Bernardin plus two tickets to "A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical," and a weeklong stay for four in a two-bedroom villa in St. Bart's.
The evening will conclude with desserts and dancing onstage or a singalong. Single tickets are $1,750; tickets at $1,900 and above will include a Tiffany box containing a small gift. V.I.P. tickets are $2,500.
Two Midsummer Nights' Magic
The Parrish Art Museum's Midsummer Magic benefit will once again span two evenings. Doors will open for the Midsummer Dance on July 14 at 8. The evening will include beats by D.J. br0nz3_g0dd3ss, whose music and art celebrates marginalized people, and a performance by Narcissister, whose work features humor and spectacle to explore gender, racial identity, and sexuality.
Tickets are $300, $400 after Friday, July 7.
The Parrish's Midsummer Dinner, set for July 15, will begin with cocktails at 6, dinner on the covered terrace at 7, and dancing in the theater with the deejay M.O.S. at 9:30. Tilting toward visual artists rather than performers, the evening will celebrate Eddie Martinez, Sam Moyer, and Hank Willis Thomas, whose works can be seen in the exhibition "Artists Choose Parrish."
Frederic Seegal, co-chairman of the museum's board of directors, his wife, Robin, and Katharina Otto-Bernstein, a filmmaker and philanthropist, will be honored. Legacy honorees are Fiona and Stanley Druckenmiller, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Gale and Ira Drukier, Charlotte Moss and Barry Friedberg, Herzog & de Meuron, Anke Jackson, Chad Leat, Alicia G. Longwell, Liliane Peck, Lisa Perry, Michèle and Steven Pesner, and the Robert Lehman Foundation.
Among the artists expected to attend are Alice Aycock, Nanette Carter, Jeremy Dennis, Joanne Greenbaum, Mel Kendrick, Claude Lawrence, Alix Pearlstein, Ugo Rondinone, Leslee Stradford, John Torreano, and Nina Yankowitz.
Tickets start at $1,500. The tax-deductible cost of sponsoring an artist ticket is $500.
