TELEVISIONNew PBS Programming: Both kids and their...

TELEVISION

New PBS Programming: Both kids and their parents are the intended beneficiaries of $8.4 million in funding for two new daily and weekly half-hour series announced Monday by the Corp. for Public Broadcasting during a press meeting in Pasadena. The new programming will include daily children’s shows and related weekly programming aimed at helping parents help their kids. Children’s Television Workshop and Columbia TriStar Television Distribution will get $4.2 million to develop and produce 40 episodes of “Dragon Tales,” based on Ron Rodecker’s dragon drawings, for preschoolers and 13 episodes of an accompanying series for parents. Another $4.2 million will go to public broadcaster WGBH Boston in partnership with Sirius Thinking Inc. to develop and co-produce a daily literacy series, “Between the Lions,” for 4- to 7-year-olds and a related 13-part series for parents. The series are expected to begin airing in 1997.

MOVIES

Burnt by the Film Bug: Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov, who won the best foreign film Oscar last year for “Burnt by the Sun,” has declined to take the seat he won in last month’s Russian parliamentary election, preferring to make films instead. Mikhalkov was one of the leading candidates for the Our Home is Russia bloc and was featured in many of its campaign advertisements. The director said he is starting work on a new film about Russian army officers.

STAGE

Following ‘Beauty’: Walt Disney Co.’s stage efforts are expanding beyond “Beauty and the Beast.” Disney’s feature animation wing will host a musical theater workshop at the Burbank studio in April and May, to be directed by Stephen Schwartz (“Godspell,” “Pocahontas”), and co-sponsored by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. Participants will present selections from their untested musicals for professional critique. Meanwhile, Walt Disney Theatrical Productions has announced that it will co-produce the Alan Menken-Tim Rice concert version of “King David” in Israel next September as its first post-”Beauty” project.

ARTS

Changes at Center: Artist and writer Clayton Campbell has been appointed acting executive director for Santa Monica’s reconfigured 18th Street Arts Complex. Campbell, who plans to remain in the post only through the end of the year while a long-term director is found, replaces Julia Salazar, who resigned during a budget crunch in June along with most of the complex’s staff. To combat its financial difficulties, the complex has closed its New Gallery and converted the exhibition space into studio space, which is now occupied by artist Lita Albuquerque. The complex has also reduced its staff from seven people to three and installed a new board of directors. In addition, High Performance magazine has moved to North Carolina, and Highways Performance Space, although it remains on-site, has become a financially separate institution. Campbell said the changes will result in “more focus on the visual arts and a bit less on the performing side.” Additional tenants at the complex include a revolving Australian artist-in-residence program, the Hittite Empire, Community Arts Resources, Cornerstone Theater, Electronic Cafe International, Side Street Projects and artists Glenn Small, Aida Cynthia DeSantis, Dan Kwong, Sherrie Rabinowitz and Phranc.

QUICK TAKES

PBS president and CEO Ervin S. Duggan is hosting a private Bel-Air dinner tonight for members of the arts and creative community “to show the flag” of the public television organization. Among those expected: Marvin and Barbara Davis, Marilyn and Alan Bergman, KCET president William H. Kobin and various unnamed studio and agency executives. The dinner officially honors Beverly Sills, chair of New York’s Lincoln Center, which has been presenting “Live From Lincoln Center” on public television for 20 years. . . . The Metropolitan Opera’s new production of “The Makropulos Case” is so far ill-fated. Friday night, its opening was canceled 10 minutes into the performance when tenor Richard Versalle died after a fall on stage, then its second scheduled performance Monday night was also canceled, this time because of the blizzard in New York City. . . . Fox News has continued its expansion by naming producer Bob Reid as Los Angeles bureau chief. Reid held previous bureau chief posts at NBC News and CBS News. . . . Suzanne Spurgeon has been named bureau chief of CNN’s Los Angeles bureau. Spurgeon has served as the network’s deputy bureau chief in L.A. since 1994. . . . Elaine Page, who was the London stage’s original Evita, will replace Betty Buckley in the late summer to become Broadway’s next Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard.” Paige, who is to debut at the Minskoff Theater on Sept. 5, has never appeared on Broadway but is well known in England, where she has starred as Desmond in London for the last year.