A Fall of Contentment in Sag Harbor

The Sag Harbor Partnership and Steinbeck House Local Advisory Committee will celebrate the launching of Steinbeck House on Saturday, September 9, with an evening at The Church titled “The Fall of Our Contentment,” a star-studded, newly penned staged reading of the classic Steinbeck novel “The Winter of Our Discontent.”

Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer John Steinbeck’s last novel, and the only one to take place on the East Coast, “The Winter of Our Discontent” was written in his beloved cottage and is about the residents of a town much like Sag Harbor where the action takes place.

Writer, director and producer Marc Abraham has written this adaptation of the novel that is being primed for a theatrical run. Director, actor and playwright Tim Blake Nelson will direct the reading that will feature local artists including James Badge Dale in the pivotal role of Ethan Hawley. A former member of the village’s aristocracy, Ethan’s father lost the family fortune and Ethan now works as a clerk in the grocery store his family once owned. A novel that grapples with morality, justice and power, and was justly reviewed as marking the return to the mood and concerns with which Steinbeck wrote “The Grapes of Wrath,” “The Winter of Our Discontent” reverberates with what the author saw to be the moral disintegration of American society in the latter part of the 20th century.

Proceeds from this event will benefit both the Sag Harbor Partnership and the Steinbeck House Local Advisory Committee. Chairing the event is the mother daughter team of producer Carol Ostrow, a member of the board of the Sag Harbor Partnership, and editor Emily Graff, a member of the Steinbeck House Local Advisory Committee.

“As longtime residents of Sag Harbor, it’s a joy for Emily and me to bring together our skills — both theatrical and literary —to support the launching of yet another jewel of our community — Steinbeck House,” said Ostrow.

A reception will take place at 6 p.m., followed by the reading of the play at 7 p.m. on the ground level of The Church, 48 Madison Street, Sag Harbor. Tickets are $125 at weblink.donorperfect.com/thefallofourcontentment. For those interested, a private dinner ($125) with members of the acting company will follow the reading at one of Sag Harbor’s oldest private homes.