Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation’s press.

TELEVISION

Playwrights to Tackle Millennium: Ten top American playwrights--including Pulitzer Prize winners Arthur Miller, Neil Simon, Wendy Wasserstein and August Wilson--will write original stories about the dawning of the new millennium to air as TV movies on ABC in November 1999. The movies, to be produced by Hallmark Entertainment, are collectively called “The Millennium Project.” In addition to Miller (“Death of a Salesman”), Simon (“The Odd Couple”), Wasserstein (“The Heidi Chronicles”) and Wilson (“The Piano Lesson”), additional playwrights include Larry Gelbart (“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”), John Guare (“Six Degrees of Separation”), David Mamet (“Glengarry Glen Ross”), Steve Martin (“Picasso at the Lapine Agile”), Elaine May (“The Birdcage”) and Terrence McNally (“Master Class”). ABC Entertainment President Jamie Tarses said the network also expects “America’s greatest directors and most interesting actors” to participate in “The Millennium Project.”

*

Cable Fare: Several high-profile cable projects were announced this week, including “Varian’s War,” a Holocaust-themed Showtime movie to be produced by Barbra Streisand. Lionel Chetwynd (“Kissinger and Nixon”) is writing the script about American Varian Fry, who is credited with rescuing more than 4,000 Jews, including artists Marc Chagal, Max Ernst and Jacques Lipchitz. Other upcoming projects include a six-hour A&E-BBC; co-production of Henry Fielding’s classic “Tom Jones,” and “Mother Teresa: In the Name of God’s Poor,” a Family Channel biography starring Geraldine Chaplin (“Home for the Holidays”).

MOVIES

On the Defensive: What a difference three weeks can make. Recent Oscar winner Billy Bob Thornton (“Sling Blade”) found himself on the defensive Tuesday after his estranged wife, Pietra, leveled charges of verbal and mental abuse in obtaining a temporary restraining order against him Monday. Thornton, who was directing a video in Arkansas and did not attend the Los Angeles hearing, said: “I’m sorry that Pietra’s advisors have convinced her to take this malicious and untruthful course of action . . . by making these false accusations of physical and mental abuse. . . . I never exhibited the behavior she’s accusing me of. Our concerns right now should be about our sons. . . .” Pietra Thornton, who filed for divorce last Friday after appearing on her husband’s arm during the March 24 Oscars, charged in a 15-page court petition that Thornton had been diagnosed as a manic depressive in 1992, and had been abusing her since before their 1993 marriage.

QUICK TAKES

Oprah Winfrey has scored the first in-depth interview with Tiger Woods (and his father) following the golfer’s record-setting Masters victory. It airs Thursday on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” (3 p.m., KABC-TV Channel 7). . . . Fox has renewed its reality series “Cops” for a 10th season. . . . Most of the former “Full House” cast--John Stamos, Dave Coulier, Lori Loughlin, Candace Cameron Bure, Jodie Sweetin and Andrea Barber--reunited with their former co-star, Bob Saget, on Tuesday for a taped reunion on Saget’s ABC series “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” The show airs May 9.