George Strait, Tammy Wynette, Alabama and the...

George Strait, Tammy Wynette, Alabama and the Judds are set to host the 25th annual “Academy of Country Music Awards” from the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. The ceremony, which will be broadcast April 25 on NBC, honors the best in country music.

Susan Lucci of daytime’s “All My Children” will star in the ABC prime-time movie “The Bride Wore Black.” The two-hour drama, scheduled for telecast during the 1990-91 season, is about a woman’s desperate search for the people who abruptly ended her marital dream when they gunned down her husband on the couple’s wedding day.

In “American Dreamer,” an NBC comedy series scheduled for next season, Robert Urich stars as an award-winning broadcast journalist who gives up his career and moves to a small Wisconsin town with his children to write a human-interest newspaper column drawn from the perspective of his past and present life. Carol Kane, Jeffrey Tambor and Johnny Galecki also star. Susan Seeger and “Family Ties” creator Gary David Goldberg are the executive producers.

Terrence McNally, George C. Wolfe and Arthur Kopit are the first playwrights to be signed to “NBC Theater,” a new series of original theatrical productions for television. The series is being launched by NBC Productions and the Manheim Co. for telecast in 1991. Emmy-winning producer Michael Manheim (“Roe vs. Wade”) conceived the series and will be executive producer.

NBC recently renewed five sophomore series--”Empty Nest,” “Unsolved Mysteries,” “Quantum Leap,” “Midnight Caller” and “In the Heat of the Night”--for the 1990-91 season. A sixth sophomore series, “Dear John,” was renewed earlier this season.