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

TELEVISION

Diversity Debate: Network executives and entertainment union officials squared off Thursday night at a seminar on cultural diversity at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. While executives from the four major networks said they were moving forward to increase diversity in front of and behind the camera, several union leaders questioned whether enough was being done. Colin Callender, president of HBO Films, and Poncho Mansfield, senior vice president of programming for Showtime, praised their records on diversity, while Charisse McGhee-Lazarou, vice president of current series for NBC Entertainment, said diversity at her network wouldn’t happen this season: “It will take a lot of time because there needs to be re-education from the ground up”--a statement that was challenged by other panelists.

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Fabares to Be Honored: In recovery from her liver transplant earlier this week, Shelley Fabares will miss Sunday’s Catholics in Media Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where she and husband Mike Farrell were to receive the group’s board of directors award. Farrell will attend. Coincidentally, this year’s motion picture award goes to “Return to Me,” a romance about a widower who falls in love with the woman who receives his wife’s transplanted heart. Members of the Transplant Recipients International Organization will be on hand to honor the film and send their best wishes to Fabares. NBC’s popular “The West Wing” will also receive an award.

RADIO

Grant Comes Home: Clinical psychologist Toni Grant returns to KABC-AM (790) on Nov. 13 with a 9 p.m.-midnight talk show on weekdays. “I’m going home again,” says Grant of KABC, the station that launched her program in 1975. Grant has been in national syndication with her midday program since 1987, but off KABC for 14 years. Grant’s return is part of the station’s new lineup, the most recent addition being “The KABC Morning Show With Dave and Amy,” weekdays 5:30-10 a.m., which launches the same Monday. Other program changes scheduled to hit that day include a time shift in “Coast to Coast With Mike Siegel” moving to midnight-4 a.m., and Mr. KABC’s show, which loses an hour to make room for Grant, will now air 7-9 p.m. Grant’s show had been airing on KRLA-AM (1110); Nov. 10 will be her final day on that station.

THEATER

Blessings From Critics: Reviews of Broadway’s “The Full Monty,” fresh from San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, forecast a long run. The New York Times predicted that the theater occupied by the musical “won’t have to look for a new tenant for a long, long time,” called the show’s book “sometimes as lame and pandering as a midseason replacement sitcom” but added that as long as the show “lets its ideally cast ensemble translate blue-collar blues into vigorous song, it’s hard not to sigh in appreciation and relief.” The Associated Press said the production “restores one’s faith in frivolous entertainment,” while Variety called it “funny, earthy and appealingly performed” though not “challenging or interesting.” USA Today found the show “tacky, tasteless and at times painfully banal, but it is also one of the most entertaining and exhilarating productions you’re likely to see,” while the New York Post dubbed it “a blockbuster and a mold-breaker.”

THE ARTS

New Leader for Lincoln Center: Gordon J. Davis will become president of Lincoln Center, effective Jan. 1, Lincoln Center Chairwoman Beverly Sills announced Friday. Davis, currently a senior partner with the New York law firm LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, has served as a Lincoln Center board member since 1984 and is the founding chairman of Jazz at Lincoln Center. The Harvard Law School graduate also served in the office of New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay from 1967-72, and with the New York City Planning Commission from 1973-78 while returning to private law practice. In 1978, Davis was appointed commissioner of parks and recreation for the city of New York by Mayor Edward I. Koch. Davis will succeed Nathan Laventhal, who served as president for almost 17 years.

POP/ROCK

Successful Anger Management: Eminem performed for about 20,000 fans without incident Thursday night in Toronto despite Ontario Atty. Gen. Jim Flaherty’s campaign to ban the rapper or have him prosecuted under Canada’s hate-speech laws. Toronto police determined that Eminem’s lyrics, some of which involve murder and other violent acts against women, do not qualify as hate speech because those laws apply only to four protected groups--race, ethnic origin, religion and sexual orientation--and that women are not among them. Eminem repeatedly has urged fans not to interpret his lyrics literally. The Anger Management Tour, headlined by Eminem and Limp Bizkit, had one more Canadian stop in Montreal scheduled Friday night before returning to the U.S. It reaches the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim on Nov. 21.

QUICK TAKES

Los Angeles playwright Kelly Stuart won $35,000 in the Whiting Foundation Writers’ Awards, presented Thursday in New York. . . . Axl Rose will perform with the new Guns N’ Roses lineup at the Rio in Rio festival in Rio de Janeiro on Jan. 14, a festival official says, but Rose’s record company had no comment and his manager was unavailable Friday. . . . Dick Van Dyke, star of CBS’ “Diagnosis Murder,” says his comments earlier this week on AP Radio suggesting he plans to retire from TV after this season were taken too seriously. “I’ve been talking about retiring for years,” the 74-year-old actor said. “It’s my standard answer to the question, ‘What are your future plans?’ The truth is I’ll always be interested in things that are worthwhile and fun.” . . . NBC’s new Thursday sitcom “Cursed” got off to a so-so start, giving up about 20% of the audience that watched “Friends” to average an estimated 17.9 million viewers. That drop is at the outward end of acceptable for a comedy following an established hit, meaning further slippage could signal trouble for the Steven Weber sitcom.