New York City - Last week Guild Hall's Academy of the Arts bestowed their Lifetime Achievement Awards on four very worthy Hamptonians.

Roy and Frieda Furman. (Douglas Harrington)

In this the 26th year of the annual awards Marshall Brickman (Literary Arts), Elizabeth Peyton (Visual Arts), Dick Cavett (Performing Arts) and Lewis B. Cullman (Special Award for Leadership and Philanthropy) were honored at an elegant gala at the stunning Cipriani's on 42nd Street.

The evening started with a red carpet step and repeat and cocktail party where the honorees mingled with other special guests and supporters of Guild Hall, the iconic and historic East Hampton venue for the arts. The annual awards gala is Guild Hall's largest fundraiser and critical to its operation and programs. "My heart sings and dances when I look out on this incredible crowd of supporters and it happens every year" said Guild Hall Executive Director Ruth Appelhof. "It is a most incredible evening, it is a miracle."

Sporting a goatee and seemingly eternally youthful, Cavett has never been comfortable when placed on the receiving end of an award. As usual the humble talk show host turned to a bit of self-deprecating humor when I asked him how it felt to receive this year's award for lifetime achievement in the performing arts, "I am always dubious about awards because, and maybe it is because of my German relative heritage, I always have the dark thought of who is it that they really wanted for tonight? Of course, I am very grateful and that is the other side of me." For more on Cavett, go to http://www.hamptons.com/Hamptons-Style/Main-Articles/7510/Dick-Cavett-Still-Curious-After-All-These-Years.html.


After opening remarks by Appelhof, President of the Academy of Arts Roy Furman and Board of Trustees Chairman Mickey Straus, last year's performing arts honoree consummate character actor and director Bob Balaban took the podium as the evening's Master of Ceremonies. Balaban's wry humor was as evident this year as MC as it was last year as an honoree. For more on Balaban, go to http://www.hamptons.com/The-Arts/Top-Stories/10096/Bob-Balaban-Is-Guild-Halls-25th-Anniversary.html.

At the 2010 gala he gave his acceptance speech with two of the Flying Karamazov Brothers juggling behind him as he spoke, with objects flying within inches of his head. This year Balaban explained that unable to get the jugglers, he tried to hire a talking parrot who recited "Hamlet." However, he explained, "Once I found out he could only do the 'To Be or Not to Be' speech I decided it wasn't worth the hundred bucks."

"Equus" star Sam Underwood and friend Amelia Michelle Black. (Douglas Harrington)

The event could have easily been dubbed The Academy of Comedy Awards, as both Brickman and Cavett matched Balaban laugh for laugh during their acceptance speeches. Peyton and Cullman were more serious in their remarks expressing the importance of Guild Hall in serving a community whose passion for the arts is unrivaled anywhere in the world.

Last summer Guild Hall mounted a spectacular production of Sir Peter Shaffer's "Equus." Directed by Tony Walton and starring Alec Baldwin and Sam Underwood, all three gentlemen were in attendance at this year's gala. For more on Underwood go to http://www.hamptons.com/Video/Main-Street-Series/11237/From-Equus-To-Main-Street-With-Actor-Sam.html.

Walton told me the three hoped to work together again this summer joined by Julianne Moore in an American premiere staged reading of Shaffer's "The Gift of the Gorgon" at Guild Hall. Walton described the play as, "The greatest play about theatre ever written." During our chat, legendary orchestra leader and pianist Peter Duchin stopped by to offer his regards to his long time friend Walton.

Guild Hall glittered again as the jewel of the Hamptons' numerous performance and art venues. An indelible part of the fabric of life on the East End, the overwhelming support for Guild Hall expressed at this year's Academy of the Arts Awards Gala reflects its profound impact on the community of artists and lovers of art that call our island paradise home.

As Guild Hall Artistic Director Josh Gladstone noted, "The Academy of the Arts is this great institution that was started 25 years ago and the fact that it is still continuing is an amazing comment about the community of where we are and the fellowship that exists between it and the artists that call it home."

For more information go to www.guildhall.org.