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

Critics’ Picks: “Wit,” “Closer” and “Parade” won the 1998-99 New York Drama Critics’ Circle awards Wednesday for best play, best foreign play and best musical, respectively. The awards cover both Broadway and off-Broadway theater. (Off-Broadway’s “Wit,” winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is not eligible for Tony Awards, but “Closer” and “Parade” received nominations Monday.) The circle also voted a special award to playwright David Hare for “contributions to the 1998-99 theater season.” However, none of the season’s three Hare offerings--”The Blue Room,” “Via Dolorosa” and “Amy’s View”--received best play Tony nominations.

POP/ROCK

Millennium Plans: There’s another big-name, big-bucks millennium concert on the horizon, with Andrea Bocelli, Sting, Aretha Franklin and Tom Jones among those set to usher in the big 2000 at “Party of the Century,” an all-night extravaganza set for New York’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Enrique Iglesias, Chuck Berry, Joan Rivers, Kool & the Gang and the Duke Ellington Orchestra are also set for the event, which will feature 12 hours of entertainment on several stages set up in what is being billed as a “dazzling millennium theme park.” Tickets are $1,000 and $1,500, and available by calling (877) 556-2000.

TELEVISION

PBS Programming Chief Quits: Kathy Quattrone, programming chief at PBS for the past three years, gave notice Tuesday that she is leaving May 14 to take charge of programming for Discovery Health Media, a new multimedia business being formed by Discovery Communications. It will include a cable channel, Internet site, videos and publications. Quattrone, whose husband already works at Discovery, said her years in public television have been wonderful but she couldn’t resist the opportunity to “get in on the ground floor” at the new venture. Her programming lieutenant at PBS, John Wilson, will take charge until a permanent successor is named.

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‘Noah’ Excuses: NBC logged “less than 100” phone calls complaining about “Noah’s Ark,” its four-hour miniseries, but a higher number of complaints were apparently received by the network’s local stations--especially in the South--for liberties the program took in telling the biblical story. The network pointed out that the production was preceded by a disclaimer saying it engaged in some “creative license” but still issued an apology to any viewers who were offended by the treatment.

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Summer Fare: Fox will move “That ‘70s Show” to Mondays on June 14 with double episodes airing at 8 and 8:30 p.m. as part of a revamped summer schedule that also includes a prime-time run for the late-night series “Mad TV,” on Fridays from 9 to 10 p.m. Among other summer fare, the network will air theatrical movies on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. under “Fox Night at the Movies,” and all-new episodes of “Fox Files” on Thursdays at 9 p.m., “Guinness World Records: Primetime” on Fridays at 8 p.m. and “America’s Most Wanted” on Saturdays at 9 p.m.

MOVIES

Computer-Animated ‘Monsters’: Disney and Pixar Animation, which together produced the hits “Toy Story” and “A Bug’s Life,” will re-team for “Monsters Inc.,” a computer-animated comedy “set in the realm of things that go bump in the night.” The movie goes into production this month for a 2001 release. Meanwhile, “A Bug’s Life,” has raked in a worldwide box office of $358 million, including $163 million in the U.S., where it is now the fourth-biggest-grossing animated feature behind “The Lion King,” “Aladdin” and “Toy Story.”

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He’ll Wait-and-See: Actor Robert De Niro and Miramax Chief Executive Harvey Weinstein are used to getting rave reviews, but the reaction from Los Angeles’ film czar is lukewarm--and skeptical--to their announced plan to turn part of the decaying Brooklyn Navy Yard into a $150-million Hollywood-caliber studio in order to keep more production work in New York. “I hear these rumors all over the country all the time [about big studio projects] and it turns out the money doesn’t exist,” said Cody G. Cluff, president of the Entertainment Industry Development Corp. “When I actually see the money change hands and them break ground, then that will be real.” Cluff added: “It does send a message to Los Angeles that we can’t afford to rest on our laurels. But [the entities involved] already do most of their work in New York. I don’t think it will have much of an impact on Los Angeles.”

QUICK TAKES

George Lucas makes his first talk-show appearance promoting “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” on today’s “Rosie O’Donnell Show”. . . . Cher will be in concert at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim on Aug. 20. Tickets go on sale Monday at 10 a.m. . . . The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who secured the release of the three American prisoners of war from Yugoslavia over the weekend, guests on CBS’ “Late Show With David Letterman” tonight. . . . Bruce Springsteen, who won an Oscar for 1994’s “Streets of Philadelphia,” has written and recorded another movie song, “Lift Me Up,” for John Sayles’ Alaskan wilderness drama, “Limbo,” due in theaters June 4. . . . Gordon Davidson, artistic director of L.A.’s Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum, has been appointed by President Clinton to the National Council on the Arts, which advises the National Endowment for the Arts on grants and policy matters.