POP/ROCKLove Speaks Out: Courtney Love, who has...

POP/ROCK

Love Speaks Out: Courtney Love, who has not done a formal interview since the suicide of husband Kurt Cobain in April, is speaking out to fans--via the America Online computer network, sources close to the rock singer confirmed Tuesday. It’s not part of a record company promotion. But as a private subscriber, Love has been regularly posting notes on the service’s “bulletin boards”--sometimes using code names, other times under her real name. Among other things, she has used the service to criticize her biological father, Hank Harrison, for appearing on TV talk shows after Cobain’s death. “Bio dad is a fraud,” she wrote in one recent message. “The guy was on ‘Geraldo’ fr gods sake and is looking for a movie deal. Please stop him.”

Monk Mania: Rhino Records is spoofing the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo’s hit album, “Chant,” with the June 28 release of “Chantmania,” a six-song CD recorded by the “Benzedrine Monks” in “Santo Domonica.” The music is described as “Muzakus Sanitus” and will include selections such as “Losing My Religion” and “Hey, Hey We’re the Monks.”

THE ARTS

MacArthur Fellows: New York Choreographer Bill T. Jones, a previous winner of the Music Center’s Dorothy B. Chandler Award, and Arthur Mitchell, the founder and artistic director of New York’s Dance Theater of Harlem, are among 20 fellowship winners announced Monday by Chicago’s prestigious MacArthur Foundation. Eleven of this year’s fellows have arts ties--in the arts’ best showing since the normally academic-leaning program began 14 years ago. Other winners include landscape photographer Robert Adams; Jeraldyne Blunden, artistic director of Ohio’s Dayton Contemporary Dance Company; jazz musician and composer Ornette Coleman; and William Reale, the founder and artistic director of New York theater company 52nd Street Project. The remaining arts winners are musician Sam Ang-Sam, the director of Washington’s Cambodian Network Council, which works to preserve Khmer performing arts; composer Anthony Braxton; documentary filmmaker Faye D. Ginsburg; Hugo Morales, the co-founder and executive director of Fresno’s Radio Bilingue; Stanford-based poet Adrienne Rich, and Carolyn McKecuen, executive director of a North Carolina crafts cooperative called the Watermark Assn. of Artisans. The so-called genius fellowships, which range from $235,000 to $375,000, were established to free exceptionally gifted individuals from financial pressures.

Tony Aftermath: Although the Disney production of “Beauty and the Beast” won only one of the nine Tony Awards for which it was nominated, publicity for the show on Sunday’s nationwide telecast led to a run on the box office Monday, resulting in nearly $1.3 million in ticket sales, a new one-day Broadway record. Tony winners “Angels in America: Perestroika,” “Passion,” “Carousel” and “An Inspector Calls” also reported significant gains. But closing dates were announced for several Tony casualties. Anna Deavere Smith’s “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,” which had been scheduled through Aug. 7, will close Sunday after 72 Broadway performances and seven previews. Also closing Sunday will be “She Loves Me” and the previously announced “Sally Marr . . . and her escorts,” while “Broken Glass” will close June 26.

MOVIES

Crooning for Stone: Oliver Stone is apparently considering Julio Iglesias to play Argentine dictator Juan Peron in his upcoming film version of “Evita.” Sources close to Iglesias say the director offered the part to Iglesias during a meeting in Manhattan earlier this month. Stone’s representative won’t confirm or deny the report. Iglesias has never before acted in a film, but his spokeswoman said he is seriously considering the role.

TELEVISION

NBC’s Housewarming: NBC will officially inaugurate its street-level, state-of-the-art home for NBC News’ “Today” and “Now With Tom Brokaw & Katie Couric” when it airs “Today at Night,” a June 21 prime-time special with anchors Couric and Bryant Gumbel, from the New York facility at Rockefeller Plaza. The show’s guests will include actor Tom Hanks; “The Nanny” star Fran Drescher; and Steven Bochco, David E. Kelley and Dick Wolf, the creators and executive producers, respectively, of ABC’s “NYPD Blue,” CBS’ “Picket Fences” and NBC’s “Law & Order.”

QUICK TAKES

ABC News’ Sam Donaldson will conduct the first in-depth TV interview with Paula Corbin Jones, who has sued President Clinton for sexual harassment while he was governor of Arkansas, on Thursday’s “PrimeTime Live.” She reportedly won’t be paid for the interview, per ABC News policy. Earlier, the tabloid-TV shows passed on the chance to interview her, claiming her asking price was too high. . . . Singer Whitney Houston has picked up yet another trophy of sorts--she will become the “featured performer” in television commercials for the nationwide introduction of AT&T; TrueVoice, a long-distance voice enhancement service. . . . “Wheel of Fortune” letter-turner Vanna White, 37, took her new baby home on Monday. Son Nicholas was born Friday. White’s husband is restaurateur George Santo Pietro, 47.