ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT REPORTS FROM THE TIMES, NEWS SERVICES AND THE NATION’S PRESS.

THE ARTS

Lannan Fills NEA Void: The Lannan Foundation--which gave $35,000 in 1989 to save the Washington Project for the Arts’ presentation of Robert Mapplethorpe’s controversial homoerotic photographs--has again come to the aid of a project shunned by the National Endowment for the Arts. The foundation said Thursday that it would replace $7,500 refused this week by the NEA to support a children’s book written by Mexican guerrilla leader Subcomandante Marcos. NEA Chairman William Ivey had canceled the grant after being informed by a New York Times reporter that the Zapatista leader was the author of “The Story of Colors,” a tale about Mayan gods. Ivey said he feared some of the money might have reached Marcos, who led an uprising five years ago in the Southern Mexican state of Chiapas. The book was originally published in Mexico in Spanish; the NEA grant to the El Paso-based Cincos Puntos Press was to help print and distribute an English version. The U.S. edition includes a photo of Marcos in his signature black ski mask, with an ammunition belt across his chest. An NEA spokeswoman said that the grant is the only one rejected in Ivey’s first year as NEA chairman, and that he approved 1,500 others.

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Stage Turns: Linda Lavin and Samantha Mathis have been cast in Donald Margulies’ “Collected Stories” May 19-June 13 at the Geffen Playhouse. . . . Jean Smart will star in the Jule Styne/Comden & Green musical “Bells Are Ringing” to kick off Reprise! Broadway’s Best in Concert’s third season at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse, May 12-23.

TV & RADIO

Bocelli Alert: Another chance to get good seats for Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli’s April 15 show at the Arrowhead Pond: The first 40 callers who make credit card pledges of $1,500 during KCET-TV’s 9-10:30 p.m. pledge drive tonight (featuring “Andrea Bocelli: Romanza in Concert”) will each receive a pair of $250 tickets to the concert along with admission to a pre-concert reception, three Bocelli CDs and a video copy of the “Romanza” program.

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A Winning Decade: CBS has now won the daytime ratings race for 10 consecutive years (520 weeks), with its soap opera “The Young and the Restless” remaining the top-rated daytime show for a record 532 straight weeks.

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Foxworthy’s Redneck Radio: Comedian and former TV star Jeff Foxworthy is headed to the radio waves with “The Foxworthy Countdown,” a planned three-hour weekly syndicated program set to debut on country music stations in April. In addition to counting down the nation’s Top 20 country songs, the program will feature Foxworthy’s comedy and conversations with performers, many of whom are friends of Foxworthy’s. In announcing the program--which will be shopped to individual stations in the next few weeks--Foxworthy credited radio with launching his career, saying: “When I was just starting out, all the other comics would talk about getting on TV. . . . I think [radio is] a major reason I’ve enjoyed the success I have.”

POP/ROCK

Latin Music Grows: The U.S. Latin music market grew at a rate twice that of the overall music market in 1998, according to figures released Thursday by the Recording Industry Assn. of America. Manufacturers reported a 12% increase in Latin audio and video sales in the U.S., from 44.1 million units in 1997 to 49.3 million units last year. The dollar value of the sales increased by 16%, to $570.9 million.. Latin music now accounts for 4.1% of the $13.7-billion U.S. music market, according to the association.

OSCAR WATCH

Calling All Bleacher Bums: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will have approximately 350 bleacher seats available for spectators outside of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to watch the Oscar arrivals on March 21. The seats will be available at 7 that morning on a first-come, first-served basis. All spectators must have identification, and will not be allowed to leave the bleacher area after entering, so are asked to bring food for the day. All minors must be accompanied by guardians.

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Shakespeare and Spice: The Oscar nominees may be lauding one another lately, but supporting actress contender Judi Dench told British TV interviewers that she literally looked up to her “Shakespeare in Love” co-star, best actress nominee Gwyneth Paltrow. On this weekend’s “Film Night,” the 5-foot-tall Dench says that she wore shoes with five-inch soles so that the 5-foot-10 Paltrow wouldn’t tower over her Queen Elizabeth I. Dench said the shoes were nicknamed “Tudor Spice,” because they looked like something the Spice Girls would wear, and that director John Madden called for retakes during filming saying: “I could see the Tudor Spice showing under your dress!”

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It’s No Golden Statuette, But: The academy is making sure no one goes home from the Oscar show empty-handed, as all presenters and nominees will receive a gift bag valued at roughly $15,000. Included in this year’s parting gift will be a set of Christofle’s Alizes crystal Champagne flutes, a TAG Heuer 2000 Exclusive sports watch, an Armani silk tie, Salvatore Ferragamo silk scarf, Ray-Ban sunglasses and $100 Blockbuster gift certificates.