East End summer arts season 2017: Guild Hall, Bay Street, more

Lynn Nottage's "Intimate Apparel" runs July 4-30 at Bay Street... — Lynn Nottage's "Intimate Apparel" runs July 4-30 at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. Credit: Invision / Charles Sykes

By Steve ParksSpecial to NewsdayJune 7, 2017

THEATER

BAY STREET THEATER

It’s a season of Pulitzers at the Hamptons’ leading summer theater company in Sag Harbor. Five Pulitzer Prize winners are featured on the creative teams behind the first two summer of ’17 shows.

“The Man in the Ceiling” A musical making its world premiere through June 25 is based on a novel by Jules Feiffer, Pulitzer-winning cartoonist. The semi-autobiographical story of a boy who loves to draw is directed by Jeffrey Seller, who won Pulitzers as producer for “Rent” and “Hamilton.”

“Intimate Apparel” July 4-30. Lynn Nottage is the only woman to win two Pulitzers for drama, including “Sweat,” now on Broadway. Her other prize was for “Ruined” in 2009. Like most of her work, “Intimate Apparel” focuses on women of African descent, in this case a seamstress who designs high-fashion lingerie. Bay Street’s season finale is:

“As You Like It” Aug. 8-Sept. 3, by William Shakespeare, who wrote it about three centuries before there was a Pulitzer.

GUILD HALL

“Angry Young Man” The John Drew Theater’s co-production with Urban Stages of an American premiere continues through June 18. This unlikely subject for a farce tells the madcap story of a Muslim surgeon who moves to London only to encounter stereotypical assumptions wherever he turns.

You can also catch a solo concert appearance by Broadway’s Bebe Neuwirth on July 21, and the latest edition of “Celebrity Autobiography” on Aug. 25, starring Brooke Shields, Christie Brinkley and Susan Lucci, among others.

WESTHAMPTON BEACH PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

Leslie Odom Jr., Tony winner as the original Aaron Burr in “Hamilton,” appears Aug. 5. You can also see Broadway heartthrob Aaron Tveit (NBC’s “Grease Live”) July 16, and Tony winner Cynthia Erivo (“The Color Purple”) Aug. 20.

Finally, enjoy free outdoor Shakespeare as New York’s Hip to Hip troupe performs “Henry IV, Part 1” and “Measure for Measure” at Southampton’s Agawam Park, Aug. 18-19. Indoors, across the street at the Southampton Arts Center, see “The 39 Steps” Hitchcock farce, July 15-30.

ART

GUILD HALL

“The Innocents” June 17-July 30. Taryn Simon makes her statement, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the Innocence Project, in an exhibit that offers visual testimony on behalf of felons who were later cleared.

“Avedon’s America” Starting Aug. 12, it encompasses portraits that go far beyond the fashion world though which Richard Avedon gained fame. In this show, his black-and-white photos reflect his recognition of beauty in all its diversity through anonymous faces and figures as well as influential ones, including Janis Joplin, John Cage, Malcolm X and, yes, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

“Jackson Pollock: The Graphic Work” Also starting Aug. 12, it’s a showcase of the artist’s printmaking skills.

PARRISH ART MUSEUM

“John Graham: Maverick Modernist” Through July 30, don’t miss works by an artist who was far more influential in his time, the early 20th century, than he’s remembered today. His quirky art was ahead of his time.

“Light | Waves” Starting July 16, the annual Platform project, in which an artist insinuates his work throughout the museum, features Clifford Ross multimedia pieces in the lobby entrance and select spots throughout the permanent collection galleries.

“From Lens to Eye to Hand: Photorealism 1969 to Today” Starting Aug. 6 in the galleries now occupied by Graham paintings, featuring contemporary works by, among many others, Hamptons-based Audrey Flack.

ELSEWHERE IN THE HAMPTONS

Photos by Tony Vaccaro from 1953 are on display through July 29 in “East End Art World” at the Pollock-Krasner House. The Southampton Arts Center’s “Hand-Picked: Selections From the Buhl Collection,” through July 23, is a curiosity — photographs and sculptures of hands. Some, like Georgia O’Keeffe’s, are celebrity hands. Meanwhile, don’t neglect outdoor art. Longhouse Reserve has new works by John Chamberlain, known for his auto-wreck sculptures. He turns to aluminum foil for his shimmering “Foils” amid such Longhouse classics as Yoko Ono’s giant chessboard.