Arts

For Anne Chaisson and David Nugent, the executive director and artistic director, respectively, of the Hamptons International Film Festival, this year’s program of more than 140 films seemed to have a common theme — they were thought-provoking and encouraged hard questions.

“An Inspector Calls,” J.B. Priestley’s classic British thriller, will kick off the Hampton Theatre Company’s 31st season next Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Quogue Community Hall. The show will run through Nov. 8.

Funky Guajiro will perform Cuban jazz at the Montauk Library on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. in a tribute to Suzanne Koch Gosman, a co-founder of the library and a former member of its board who died in 2008.

Four filmmakers whose works were in the Hamptons International Film Festival’s documentary competition gathered at Rowdy Hall in East Hampton on Saturday morning as part of the Winick Talks series. The directors are linked by their obsessions with specific individuals whose personalities and circumstances not only drove the filmmakers to make their films but also in large part determined how those films evolved.

Guild Hall’s JDTLab will have a free staged reading of “Ashes and Ink,” a play by Martha Pichey, a writer and ed- itor, tomorrow at 8 p.m. The play focus- es on the complicated relationship be- tween Molly and her son, Quinn, who descends into addiction after the sudden death of his father. Topaz Adizes, an Emmy Award-winner, will direct.

As they have in recent years, the guitarist G.E. Smith and the musician Taylor Barton-Smith, who live in Amagansett, will liven up the South Fork’s off-season with a host of special events at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, starting on Saturday at 8 p.m. with the launch of the Portraits series.

Karén Hakobyan, an Armenian-American pianist and composer, will perform in the Salon Series at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill tomorrow at 6 p.m. Since his debut at Carnegie Hall at the age of 17, Mr. Hakobyan has performed in concert halls in Europe, Latin America, and the United States, won prizes at many piano competitions, performed on radio stations here and abroad, and earned awards for his compositions.

The Parlor Jazz series will open a new season at the Bridgehampton Museum’s Archive Building with “Heart of a Troubadour,” a performance by Steve Washington, tomorrow at 7:30 p.m.

The Watermill Center will present an open rehearsal of Amy Khoshbin’s “The Myth of Layla,” a work in progress that incorporates performance and video, on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. “Fall Treasures,” a show of new and classic photographs, is on view through Nov. 23 at the Tulla Booth Gallery in Sag Harbor.

Joseph Vecsey will return to Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor as host of a new All Star Comedy Show featuring Adrienne Iapalucci, Krystyna Hutchin- son, and Sergio Chicon tomorrow at 8 p.m.

On May 3, 1960, “The Fantasticks” opened at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village, where it continued to play for the next 42 years, earning it the heavyweight belt of off-Broadway musicals. This charming play can be seen now at the Southampton Cultural Center.

Having a difficult time making sense of the dozens of films and events at the Hamptons International Film Festival? While the big films, such as the festival opener “Truth,” sell themselves, the quieter ones can be harder to parse.

Laura Benanti, a Tony Award-winning actress and vocalist, will appear live in concert at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor on Saturday at 8 p.m.

Center Stage at Southampton Cultural Center will hold open auditions for Joe Landry’s “It’s a Wonderful Life, a Live Radio Play” on Sunday and Mon- day at 6 p.m. at the center’s Levitas Cen- ter for the Arts. Auditions will begin promptly, and late arrivals will be seen at the discretion of the director, Michael Disher. Readings will be from the script.

Soyeon Kate Lee, a Korean-American pianist who won first prize at the 2010 Naumburg International Piano Competition, will perform tomorrow at 6 p.m. in the Salon Series at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill.

The film director Sidney Lumet, who died in 2011 at the age of 86, directed 44 feature films, beginning in 1957 with “12 Angry Men” and concluding 50 years later with “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.”

Take a peek inside the studio wall with the Artists Alliance of East Hampton’s 28th annual studio tour. An exhibition of photographs by Rowenna Chaskey, will open at Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor.

Although the people who were prep school age at the time of the Choate Rosemary Hall cocaine scandal are now pushing 50, the story, about a scholarship kid trying to fit in with a fast-moving elite crowd by selling drugs to them, has a timeless quality.

The Artists Alliance of East Hampton’s 2015 studio tour will provide an opportunity to experience the variety of work being created on the East End and to engage in illuminating conversations with the artists, 16 of whom will open their workspaces on Oct. 10 and Oct. 11 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.

Arlene Reckson could not have known, when she accepted a position at Record Plant Studios in Manhattan’s Times Square, that John Lennon would soon invite her into the control room for the first-ever listen of his just-completed “Imagine” album.

The Bridgehampton Child Care and Recreational Center will hold a benefit gospel concert, “Songs of Solomon,” on Oct. 10 at 4 p.m. at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church.

The Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival will honor Stanley Nelson with its Career Achievement Award at this year’s festival, which will take place at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor from Dec. 3 through Dec. 6.

Mr. Nelson’s films have earned five Primetime Emmys, two awards from the Sundance Film Festival, two Peabodys, and he is a MacArthur Foundation Fellow. While his films have explored a wide range of topics, he has been especially drawn to stories of the civil rights movement. His film “Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” will be shown at this year’s festival.

"Air Kites" by Richard Brockman will be read as part of the JDTLab on Tuesday.

The Met: Live in HD series will kick off its 2015-16 season at Guild Hall on Saturday at 1 p.m. with “Il Trovatore,” Verdi’s four-act tragedy. Its notoriously complicated plot includes revenge, mis- taken identity, rivalry between suitors, suicide, and execution, all pulled togeth- er by its “absolutely glorious” music, ac- cording to WQXR-FM radio’s “Opera in Brief.”

The Hamptons International Film Festival has partnered this year with the United Nations and the International Organization for Migration to bring short films made by students around the world to the East Hampton screen.

Take the high road! Dell Cullum will teach drone photography at the Long House Reserve on Oct. 17.

The Choral Society of the Hamptons will hold auditions for its next concert on Monday, by appointment, at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church. Rehearsals are usually held on Mondays from 7:30 to 10 p.m.

Another film from the 2013 documentary festival, “The Only Real Game,” directed by Mirra Bank of East Hampton, is now available for download from iTunes, Amazon.com, and the film’s website. “The Only Real Game” is about the importance of baseball to the people of Manipur, a remote and troubled corner of India beset by civil wars, martial law, drugs, and H.I.V./AIDS.

This year’s African American Film Festival, which will feature a stage play, spoken word performances, and live jazz as well as movies, will take place from next Thursday through Oct. 4 at the Southampton Arts Center on Job’s Lane.

Guild Hall’s JDT Lab will present “Theatre of the Oppressed: An Introduction to Forum Theatre,” live, interactive, and free, on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. Graduate students in applied theater from the City University of New York’s School of Professional Studies, along with Kasia Klimiuk, the lead artist, will stage a piece on social and human rights issues. After the performance, audience members can act out the changes they want to see in the world.