SHORT TAKES : PBS to Showcase Vaclav Havel

The new president of Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel, will be the honored subject of three specials this spring on PBS.

New York PBS station WNET will tape “An American Tribute to Vaclav Havel and a Celebration of Democracy in Czechoslovakia” tonight at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. That program is scheduled to air March 1.

The one-hour “all-star tribute” will include performances by Paul Simon, Placido Domingo, Roberta Flack, Dizzy Gillespie and James Taylor, with appearances by Paul Newman, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Elie Wiesel, Sigourney Weaver, Henry A. Kissinger, Kathleen Turner and others.

Planned for April 20 broadcast is a 90-minute performance of Havel’s one-act play, “Audience.” The program, called “Havel’s ‘Audience’ With History,” was taped Jan. 10 in Prague with Havel in attendance, seeing his 15-year-old work publicly performed in his native country for the first time.

WNET will present another Havel play as part of its “Great Performances” series, also to be aired in April.