Arts

    The 10th annual free winter film series at Guild Hall, presented in partnership with the East Hampton Library, kicks off Sunday at 4:30 p.m. with “A Bottle in the Gaza Sea,” the story of a 17-year-old French girl who emigrates to Israel with her family. Distressed by the hatred between Israelis and Palestinians, she writes a letter expressing her feelings and puts it into a bottle that her brother throws into the sea near Gaza. A few weeks later, she receives an email from a young Palestinian boy, and a long-distance friendship develops.

     Gail Levin has organized an exhibition of the work of Theresa Bernstein, now on view at the James Gallery at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

    Ms. Levin, who has a house in Bridgehampton, is distinguished professor of art history at the graduate center and Baruch College. She edited the exhibition catalog, with articles written by her, her students, and other scholars interested in Bernstein’s work.

    Friday nights in Sag Harbor will get a little warmer this winter with Bay Street’s new series Fireside Sessions With Nancy Atlas. Each Friday night at 8 in January and February, Ms. Atlas will be joined by a special guest.

    Free Grass Union, a bluegrass and folk-inspired band, will bring its unique musical stylings to the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett on Saturday night at 8.

    The band features Gregory Butler, who may be familiar as a teacher to those with children in the East Hampton school system, on vocals and mandolin. He is joined by Kim Humphrey, who plays guitar and sings, and Mitch Erdman, who plays upright bass.

    The band was formed in 1999 and has since played at numerous fairs and festivals as well as bar and concert stages. Tickets cost $10 at the door.

    The Parrish Art Museum is hosting Into the Light, an early winter dance party, tomorrow from 6 to 8 p.m. Music will be spun by D.J. Mister Lama, now of Sag Harbor, a self-described “Peruvian redneck from Texas who has been manipulating sound for more than 20 years.”

    Video from the tropics will heat up the atmosphere, and drinks and snacks will be available from the Café by Art of Eating. The cost is $10, free for members, and includes museum admission.

    Advance reservations may be made at parrishart.org.

    Marvin Hamlisch, a composer and longtime resident of Westhampton Beach and later Sag Harbor, will be the subject of a new PBS “American Masters” series documentary scheduled to premiere nationally and on WNET 13 tomorrow at 9 p.m.

    Mr. Hamlisch, who died in 2012, was the composer of Broadway musicals and movie soundtracks. His credits include “A Chorus Line” and hit songs such as “The Way We Were” and “Nobody Does It Better.” His work won several awards including a number of Grammys, Emmys, Oscars, and Golden Globes. He also won a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize.

    A Google search of “athletics in India” reveals the not surprising fact that cricket is the most popular sport in the country. Chess, hockey, soccer, and tennis are also widespread. On Wikipedia’s “Sports in India” page, one must scroll past 26 other pastimes before arriving at baseball. Curiosity is naturally piqued by the knowledge that Mirra Bank’s new documentary film, “The Only Real Game,” is not only about baseball in India, but about the sport’s popularity in Manipur, a remote, isolated state on the Burmese border that is virtually closed to foreigners.

    The Artists Alliance of East Hampton is presenting work by approximately 40 of its members at Ashawagh Hall in Springs this weekend. The exhibition will include paintings, drawings, sculpture, photographs, and mixed media works.

    The alliance was founded in honor of Jimmy Ernst, the abstract painter who lived in East Hampton from 1969 until his death in 1984. A reception with live music and refreshments will be held Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m. Gallery hours are Friday, noon to 6 p.m., Saturday, noon to 8 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m.

    “All Me: The Life and Times of Winfred Rembert,” a documentary directed by Vivian Ducat, won the 2013 Brown Harris Stevens Audience Award at the Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival, which was held at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor earlier this month. The film is the story of a self-taught African-American artist who spent seven years on a chain gang in a Georgia prison, where he learned how to tool and dye brightly colored leather canvases.

    St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in East Hampton will present a concert of festive songs and arias on Saturday at 4 p.m. in Hoie Hall. Guest artists are Sofia Dimitrova, a soprano soloist, and Daria Rabotkina and William McNally, award-winning classical pianists.

    The program will include works by Mozart, Bach, Mendelssohn, Strauss, and Handel, among others. Admission is $20, free for those under 18.

    This year has been a busy one for Joan Semmel. She had a solo exhibition at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in the spring, solo shows at both Alexander Gray Associates, her New York dealer, and Art Basel, exhibited at Frieze New York, and now has two paintings at the Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum in Bremen, Germany, in the group exhibition “Sie. Selbst. Nackt.” The title, which translates as “She. Herself. Naked,” could be applied to much of Ms. Semmel’s career as a painter.

    Bookmarks have not always been made of heavy paper stock. Selections from one of the world’s largest collections of antique silver bookmarks are on view at the Pelletreau Silversmith Shop in Southampton through Dec. 23. Approximately 330 examples made by European and American silversmiths between 1800 and 1920 have been selected from the collection of Myra Weiser. These bookmarks, many of which were used not only to hold a place but also to detach pages from each other, reflect the fine craftsmanship of the silversmith.

    Scott Schwartz’s choice for the first production of his first main stage season as Bay Street Theatre’s artistic director augurs well for the goal of returning Bay Street to the cutting edge of America’s regional theater scene.

    “Conviction” by Carey Crim will make its world premiere at Bay Street in 2014 with Mr. Schwartz directing. It is the story of a trusted and honored teacher accused of sexual misconduct with a student.

    “Carnivale!” — a concert of classical works for piano and clarinet by Maksim Shtrykov and Alina Kiryayeva — is coming this weekend to the Montauk Library and the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton. The Montauk program is scheduled for Saturday at 7:30 p.m. The Southampton concert will take place Sunday afternoon at 3. “Carnivale!” includes works by Bassi, Chopin, Liszt, Saint-Saens, Messager, Giampieri, Rachmaninoff, and Rossini. The program, which is free at both locations, has been recommended for younger audiences, first-time concertgoers, and families with children.

    Qi Xu, a 19-year-old pianist from China, will present a program of works by Chopin and Liszt on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Levitas Center for the Arts at the Southampton Cultural Center. Qi Xu, a Pianofest alumnus who performed at the Levitas Center in 2011, is enrolled in the Columbia-Juilliard exchange program. He has performed in Poland, Ukraine, Germany, France, and Morocco, where he won first prize in the Morocco Philharmonic International Piano Competition.

    Pritam & Eames in East Hampton will host a book signing of “Speaking of Furniture: Conversations With 14 American Masters” on Saturday from 3 to 5 p.m. Just published by the Artist Book Foundation, the book is based on interviews with 14 furniture designers by Bebe and Warren Johnson, the owners of Pritam & Eames, where all the artist-craftsmen have exhibited.

    There was history on the screen at Bay Street Theatre Saturday night, and history in the room.

New at Halsey Mckay

    An installation by Kysa Johnson and paintings by Annabelle Speer will go on view Saturday at the Halsey Mckay Gallery in East Hampton. Ms. Johnson’s paintings, drawings, and installations utilize as imagery what she terms “microscopic or macroscopic ‘landscapes,’ ” including maps of the universe and the molecular structure of pollutants.

    The Met: Live in HD at Guild Hall will have an encore screening of Verdi’s “Falstaff” on Wednesday at 6 p.m. Robert Carsen’s production, the first new Met “Falstaff” since 1964, is set in the English countryside in the mid-20th century. Ambrogio Maestri sings the title role, and James Levine, the Met’s musical director, conducts. Tickets cost $22, $20 for members, and $15 for students.

       The Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons continues to offer intellectual sustenance for garden enthusiasts during the winter months with two programs this weekend. Saturday morning at 11, Carolyn Gemake will moderate a discussion of two books, Edward Hyams’s “Capability Brown and Humphrey Repton” and Doug Tallamy’s “Bringing Nature Home.” The talk, which is free and open to the public, will take place in the horticultural library on the ground floor of the Bridgehampton Community House.

      Cynthia Hopkins, a performance artist, will present a work-in-progress showing of her newest piece Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at the Watermill Center, where she is currently in residence. Titled “A Living Documentary,” the work combines elements of musical comedy, autobiography, documentary, and fiction to create a portrait of the difficulties of earning a living as a theater artist in the 21st century. The piece will have its world premiere at New York Live Arts on March 5.

      The Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival returns to Bay Street Theatre this weekend with a slate of 11 features and 11 shorts, including special programs devoted to D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, pioneers of cinema verité, and Lana Jokel, this year’s Filmmaker’s Choice Award winner.

Meola’s “Born to Run” Photos

       Eric Meola, a photographer and Sagaponack resident who captured the iconic image of Bruce Springsteen and Clarence Clemons for the cover of the 1975 album “Born to Run,” is exhibiting a selection of photographs at the Tulla Booth Gallery in Sag Harbor from among the 700 taken during the two-hour photo shoot. While images from that session have been widely published in magazines, they have seldom been exhibited as large, archival prints, according to Ms. Booth.

      The “Willem de Kooning: Ten Paintings, 1983-1985” exhibition at the Gagosian gallery on Madison Avenue is grand in scale and vision. An expertly chosen sampling of the best works of the artist’s late period, the paintings sing together in a room that, while full of white space, seems barely able to contain them.

       Lana Jokel, whose documentary “Larry Rivers Public and Private” won this year’s Filmmaker’s Choice Award from the Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival, has enjoyed a long career as a film director and editor, but it’s not one her upbringing encouraged. One of three children of a wealthy Shanghai industrialist, she spent her early years in that city before the 1949 triumph of Mao Zedong’s army forced the family to move to Hong Kong.

      Darynn Zimmer, a soprano and former Sag Harbor resident who sang with the Choral Society of the Hamptons, will perform in two English-language operatic miniatures this weekend at the Poet’s Den and Gallery in East Harlem. Ms. Zimmer will play Mrs. Clancy in Lee Hoiby’s “The Italian Lesson,” based on the Ruth Draper monologue, and Estelle in Hugo Weisgall’s “The Stronger,” based on the Strindberg play. Neither work has been performed in New York City for more than 20 years.

      Our Fabulous Variety Show, a troupe of performers dedicated to polishing their craft while raising money for nonprofit organizations, will perform at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday in a benefit for WPPB 88.3 at Guild Hall’s John Drew Theater.

    Billy Rayner hasn’t been to China. Or Japan. But he’s been practically everywhere else during the past 50 years and kept diaries filled with watercolors, photographs, observations, historical information, and memorabilia. “Notes and Sketches: Travel Journals of William P. Rayner,” a two-volume set, has just been published by Glitterati Incorporated, allowing readers a view into a life fully lived.

Ruffins at John Jermain

    Reynold Ruffins, an award-winning painter, illustrator, and designer, will exhibit a selection his illustrations at the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor from Wednesday through Jan. 18. Mr. Reynolds, who lives in Sag Harbor, graduated from Cooper Union and received its most prestigious honor, the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Award for outstanding professional achievement in arts.

    The Choral Society of the Hamptons will present “In Terra Pax” on Dec. 8. The program is named for Gerald Finzi’s piece of the same title, which mixes the verse of Robert Bridges, a British poet who died in 1930, with the Gospel of Luke. In passages the voices mimic the sound of church bells. Other works include Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “Fantasia on Christmas Carols” and compositions by Cecilia McDowall and Peter Warlock.