STAGE

More Bad News for Grove: GroveShakespeare, Orange County’s second largest professional theater company, has postponed “King Lear” for the second time, presaging the almost-certain cancellation of its 1993 season and the probable demise of the company as now constituted. The first preview had been scheduled for June 23. Alan Mandell, who was to star as Lear, said Monday that he and the cast have been released from their contracts. “They said if they could come up with money over the next few days perhaps we would be asked to sign new contracts. But I’m not hopeful,” he said. The cash-starved Grove currently has a $200,000 deficit and has spent all revenues from 1,432 subscriptions.

MOVIES

* Out of Public Domain: Republic Pictures Corp. has acquired exclusive rights to both the music in Frank Capra’s classic film “It’s a Wonderful Life” and the short story upon which the 1946 movie was based. The company says the copyrights will “preserve and protect the integrity of Capra’s masterpiece” and keep the work, which had fallen into the public domain, from being exploited. The move means that TV stations and home video distributors will now need licenses from Republic to sell or broadcast versions of the film.

* Warner Gets the Buzz: Warner Bros. will begin production this fall on John Hughes’ “The Bee,” which the studio picked up after the film was dumped by Fox. Hughes (“Home Alone”) will write, produce and direct the film about an architect’s disastrous attempt to develop farmland. His upcoming film, “Dennis the Menace,” opens June 25.

* Copyright Suit: Writer-director John Sayles has been sued for copyright infringement in a U.S. District Court in Virginia over his Oscar-nominated “Passion Fish” screenplay. Lawyer-writer Virginia Louise Towler complains that Sayles extracted portions of his script from a screenplay she wrote and which, she contends, Sayles had seen. Also named in the suit is distributor Miramax Films. Sayles is on location in Ireland, but his agent Stuart Robinson described Sayles as “the paragon of integrity . . . he didn’t steal nothin’ from nobody.”

TELEVISION

* White House Performances: The Clintons are bringing back “In Performance at the White House,” the PBS series that began during the Carter Administration. On Friday, the First Couple will host a performance on the White House’s South Lawn of a couple of dozen “world-class musicians” assembled to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Newport Jazz Festival. A one-hour version of the two-hour concert will be broadcast Sept. 12. Among the musicians expected: Thelonious Monk Jr., Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Joe Williams, Rosemary Clooney and Bobby McFerrin. Clinton has not said whether he and his sax will join in.

* Nickelodeon Magazine: Nickelodeon, the kids cable channel, today launches Nickelodeon magazine, a new humor magazine for kids 8 to 12. The bimonthly includes such features as “5 Excuses for Not Doing Homework” (“My fax machine was on the blink, so I couldn’t get the answers from Jimmy”); “Super Mario Bros.” film star John Leguizamo’s insight on the biggest difference between the U.S. and his native Colombia (“the toilet paper”), and a kids’ food critic who blends together items including maraschino cherries, pearl onions, tuna fish and strawberry frozen yogurt.

Finding ‘Waldo’: Saturday morning’s Family Channel cartoon lineup gets a new addition in September, if only the kids are able to find him. “Where’s Waldo?,” an animated half-hour show based on the popular character hidden in books, puzzles and other merchandise, will be seen at 9:30 a.m., with the hero lost in a different adventure each week.

* Gotta Talk: The Talk Channel, Multimedia Entertainment’s new 24-hour national cable channel featuring all-talk shows, will be launched in the fall of 1994. Programs will cover breaking news as well as topical issues, with viewers involved through a live satellite hook-up.

POP/ROCK

* Healthy Musicians: The Clintons aren’t the only ones talking about health care these days. The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, best known for the Grammy Awards, has set up its own health cooperative, the first of its kind to cover all members of an entire industry. Coverage will include musicians, engineers, producers, “roadies,” record company executives and music journalists. The program, known as MusiCares, also has an $800,000 annual fund for emergency assistance.

QUICK TAKES

* Warren Olney will be recognized for his KCRW-FM (89.9) radio program “Which Way L.A.?” by the Los Angeles Headquarters Assn. at ceremonies at the Music Center today. . . . Sony Pictures chairman Peter Guber and environmental photographer Robert Glenn Ketchum were honored by UCLA over the weekend during the university’s annual Alumni Awards. . . . KFWB radio (980 AM) has received the Radio-Television News Directors Assn.’s 1993 Edward R. Murrow Award for Spot News Coverage for its series “City Under Siege: The L.A. Riots.”