Arts

   There is an oft-repeated assertion by the late historian Jacques Barzun that starts, “Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.” Perhaps less known is the full quote, which includes the suggestion that one learn the game “by watching first some high school or small-town teams.”

    This came to mind during a viewing of “The Only Real Game,” an engrossing and deeply stirring documentary depicting the popularity of our national pastime in what would seem an unlikely place: Manipur, a poor and embattled state in northeastern India.

   The Southampton Cultural Center will present a dance recital by Steps Repertory Ensemble on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the center’s Levitas Center for the Arts. Under the guidance of Claire Livingstone, the artistic director and a former dancer with the Royal Ballet, the ensemble has grown to a company of 10 to 12 professional dancers.

   East End nightspots attract hundreds of 20 and 30-somethings like moths to light every summer, but a slightly more sedate crowd wends its way to more serene surroundings for classical music.

    The highest notes come from the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, the Perlman Music Program, which sponsors a summer school for international students on Shelter Island, and Pianofest, a remarkable program of master classes and concerts for and by prizewinning pianists.

Any day now, with the scut work over and a vast pile of 1950s rubble trucked away, they’ll be bringing in a load of steel support beams, and the enormous task of turning the falling-down shell of Thomas Moran’s East Hampton Village house back into the eccentric showplace it used to be will get under way for real.

   An abundance of nationally and internationally acclaimed musicians will perform on the South Fork this summer. The more prestigious venues offer a broad range of musical shows, many of which will take place in a setting more intimate than audiences are likely to find anywhere else.

East End Photogs at 25

    The East End Photographers Group will observe its 25th anniversary with a show at Ashawagh Hall in Springs opening Saturday and running through June 9. This will be the first of a number of shows in the area this season to mark the milestone. The group has dedicated this one to the memory of Tim Lee and Vito Sisti, who both died this year.

   Valerie Coates, a mezzo-soprano, and Jason Andrews, a pianist, will perform Wagner’s “Wesendonk Lieder” and Verdi’s “Composizioni da Camera” on Sunday from 3:30 to 5 p.m. at the Montauk Library. The free concert is part of a series of events sponsored by the library in honor of the 200th anniversary of the birth of both composers.

   On a searingly bright but breezy mid-spring day, Melville (Mickey) Straus stood on his patio wearing a purple sweater over a plaid shirt and cords with a conspiratorial twinkle in his eye. “My wife will be angry that I suggested we sit out here in the cold, but I just love being outside,” he said, grinning as he offered a warming cup of coffee. He seemed to appreciate that the panoramic view from the patio, overlooking his pool, Hook Pond, and the late afternoon golfers at the Maidstone Club, was worth a little chill in the air.

   Christine Sciulli, the first artist in residence at the South Fork Natural History Museum on the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike in Bridgehampton, will collaborate with Jaanika Peerna, an artist and performer, and David Rothenberg, a composer, for a multimedia concert and performance on Saturday based on Ms. Sciulli’s installation “The Expansive Field.”

    Ms. Sciulli is a projection and installation artist. Saturday’s event will take place at the museum’s grounds and in its barn studio from 6 to 9 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.

   Arthur Pinajian’s life and legacy combine to form one of those stories that should be made into a book or movie, and it was. Yet, it wasn’t about him specifically. Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Bluebeard: The Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian” is about an eccentric Armenian-American painter who knew all the big boys of Abstract Expressionism but chose to paint his own art in obscurity and died unknown. This is also Pinajian’s story in brief, and the similarities in “Bluebeard” continue, but you get the idea.

    Ille Arts in Amagansett is sponsoring a fund-raising concert by Philip Glass and Jon Gibson on June 8 from 6 to 8 p.m. in the lecture hall at the Ross School. Proceeds will support the gal­lery’s community programs and emerg­ing artists exhibitions.

    Along with the music of Mr. Glass and Mr. Gibson, a saxophonist, attendees can enjoy cocktails and an opportunity to bid on works of art offered in a silent auction.

    Tickets cost $200 and are available by e-mailng Sara de Luca at sara@illearts. com.

    The Hamptons International Film Festival will begin its fifth SummerDocs series on June 15 with “Twenty Feet from Stardom,” directed by Morgan Neville.

    The documentary looks at the backup singers who help bring out the best in their leads. It focuses on three artists, all different in their styles, genres, and time periods, who offer their take on what it’s like to be just to the left of the limelight.

   The sounds of summer begin tomorrow at 6 p.m. with the return of D.J. Blind Prophet to the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill. The public is invited to enjoy food and beverages, along with music, on the terrace. The event is free with museum admission.

    Blind Prophet is Joseph Burns, a native Long Islander. After his first release, on the Car Crash Set label out of Seattle in 2010, his music has appeared on other labels including L2S Recordings, Gradient Audio, DubKraft, and Haunted Audio. He has performed in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Reservations are suggested.

Pots at Horowitz

    Glenn Horowitz Bookseller in East Hampton will present “Jonas Wood and Shio Kusaka: Still Life With Pots” beginning Saturday with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m.

    This will be the first dual exhibition of works by the couple, who are based in Los Angeles. Ms. Kusaka makes graceful porcelains in a minimalist vein, decorated with grids, bands, and dots to form compositions. Mr. Wood is a painter who composes portraits, interiors, and still lifes with pattern and geometry. His subject for this show is his partner’s ceramics.

    Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor will launch its 2013 Mainstage season with “Lend Me a Tenor,” a comedy by Ken Ludwig originally produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber on London’s West End in 1986, then on Broadway in 1989. Directed by Don Stephenson, the cast will include Judy Blazer, Scott Cote, Betsy DiLellio, Donna English, Nancy Johnston, Noah Plomgren, Steve Rosen, and Roland Rusinek.

   Three couples, an indiscretion, a cover-up, accusations, and crumbling alibis on overlapping sets lead to confusion and comedy in the Hampton Theatre Company’s revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s “How the Other Half Loves,” opening today for a three-week run at Quogue Community Hall.

    “A Multicultural Exploration of Homegoing Celebrations of Life: Art and Archeology of Death in the African Diaspora,” a multimedia symposium, will be held on Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Rogers Mansion in Southampton.

    The program will explore death in the African diaspora from archaeological and artistic perspectives, bringing together educators, an archaeologist, and a musician to teach communal responses to death and reveal cultural adaptation and resilience throughout African-American history.

   Konstantin Soukhovetski, a Pianofest distinguished artist and Pianofest’s artist in residence, will perform on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Levitas Center for the Arts at the Southampton Cultural Center. Mr. Soukhovetski was the first pianist to perform in the center’s Rising Stars Piano Series when it was founded in 2003. He joined the board of the Southampton Cultural Center last year.

    AcquAria, a duo composed of Michela Musolino, vocalist, and Vincenzo Castellana, drums, will give a free concert, “Sempri amMari (Always the Sea) — Folk Songs of Sicily,” on Sunday from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in the Suzanne Koch Gosman Room at the Montauk Library.

    The two promise a dynamic program of music dedicated to the sea, including maritime songs, fishermen’s chanteys, legends, and love songs that illustrate the bond between Sicily’s people and the sea that surrounds their island. The performance will be in Sicilian and include a discussion in English.

   Before Saturday’s performance of “In the Next Room (or the vibrator play)” by Sarah Ruhl, the Hamptons Independent Theatre Festival, also known as HITFest, will hold a benefit at the Bridgehampton Community House for its summer outdoor performance of William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.”

   The public has been invited to the preview week of “Journey Back to the Wikun Village” at the Wikun (Shinnecock for “good”) Village, the Shinnecock Museum’s new outdoor living culture attraction, today through Monday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free.

   An estimated 10,000 people came to the Montauk Music Festival last year to enjoy free, live, original music, a combined effort by organizers and businesses that they said resulted in a win-win-win situation for music lovers, musicians, restaurants, bars, and motels.

    From tonight through Sunday, twice the amount of businesses will welcome 100 musical acts for 250 performances with the only paid event being the $35 opening night party tonight at Gurney’s Inn, which includes passed hors d’oeuvres and a three-hour open bar.

   Free performances are on tap from 6 to 8 p.m. on Saturday in Amagansett. Innersleeve Records and Crossroads Music, both in Amagansett Square, will feature free performances by artists including Jewlee Trudden and InCircles as well as Mamalee Rose and Friends. Liz Joyce of Goat on a Boat Puppet Theatre will give a free puppet performance from 6 to 6:30 in the square. In the event of rain, that performance will be held at the Stephen Talkhouse.

   The Watermill Center has invited the East End community to a new program initiative, Saturdays @ WMC, focusing on unique ways to interact with the Watermill Center grounds, collection, studios, and kitchen. On Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. the center will host local artists to lead workshops inspired by everything the center has to offer.

   It may appear that it’s solely the new building that’s giving the Parrish Art Museum its current buzz and vigor, and it is certainly part of the equation. But the energy emanating from Water Mill also comes from within, particularly as the Parrish gears up for its first summer season.

   Shelter Island Friends of Music will present the Linden String Quartet on Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church at 32 North Ferry Road (Route 114). The quartet will perform music by Haydn, Bolcom, and Mendelssohn. A meet-the-artists reception with refreshments will follow. Admission is free, but donations will be welcomed. More information is at 749-2251.

Expressionism Part II

    The Pollock-Krasner House in Springs will have a discussion called “Expressionism in the 21st Century: Part 2” on Sunday from 4 to 6 p.m. Participants will include Sally Egbert, Connie Fox, Colin Goldberg, Carol Hunt, and Haim Mizrahi. Linda Hatofsky, the widow of Julius Hatofsky, a West Coast Expressionist, will discuss her late husband’s work.

    Contributions from the audience will be welcomed. Admission is free and no reservations are required.

And the Winners Are . . .

   Bruce Wolosoff, a composer and pianist who lives on Shelter Island, will give a benefit recital for the German Diez Scholarship Fund at the Renee Weiler Concert Hall of the Greenwich House Music School at 46 Barrow Street in Manhattan tonight at 8. Tickets cost $20 and are available at the door. Additional donations have been requested.

   Much like a chrysalis, the stage of Guild Hall’s John Drew Theater is undergoing a living transformation as the company of actors put together by director Stephen Hamilton embody their roles in the Martin McDonagh play “The Cripple of Inishmaan,” which opens for a very limited run on Wednesday.

   Alan Alda, the actor, director, writer, and educator, was honored on April 24 at the Stony Brook Foundation’s annual fund-raising event, held at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan. The benefit raised more than $4 million, which will help pay for the university’s new Center for Communicating Science.

    The university’s president, Dr. Samuel L. Stanley Jr., announced to the 750 guests at the event, among them the Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Dr. Eric Kandel, that the building will henceforth be known as the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science.