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

THE ARTS

Sellars Makes Waves in Adelaide

The ever-controversial Peter Sellars is stirring up a storm in Australia, where he’s directing the 2002 Adelaide Festival--the country’s most prestigious arts event.

Some fear that he’s adopting a similar approach to the one he embraced as director of the Los Angeles Festival in 1990 and 1993. Favoring culturally diverse, neighborhood productions over big-ticket imports, they say, may have led to that event’s demise.

Anxieties are intensified by a host of recent developments. Several key staff members have departed--including chief executive Nicholas Heyward. And there are questions about Heyward’s handling of a belatedly disclosed $1.2-million deficit from the 2000 festival that leaves the event’s future in question.

The board of directors was hoping for a high-visibility program to help the festival compete for funding. Sellars, for his part, calls the event “modest, but far-reaching.”

“The festival is not to be grandiose--it’s not the second coming,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald. “This culture of timidity is a drag. It is a different kind of event--but Adelaide has always liked to be ahead of the game.”

Building a Museum to Look at the South’s Past

In an attempt to confront a darker part of the city’s past, the mayor of Charleston, S.C., is proposing the creation of a museum dedicated to the slave trade. If the project comes into being, it would be the largest of its kind in the United States.

“For a while, I would have said that people here aren’t ready to take another look at this history of ours, maybe a more honest look,” Mayor Joseph P. Riley told the New York Times. “But that’s not the case anymore. Not just the community but the whole country has matured in terms of our willingness to confront slavery. We, as a culture, need to do this as part of our progress in coming together and healing.”

A small museum in the downtown Slave Mart, where slaves were bought and sold, is expected to open within a year--part of a statewide network of sites connected to African American history. Riley is also proposing a more ambitious museum along the lines of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The money needed for this project would come primarily from private donors.

Meanwhile, L.A.’s 20-year-old California African-American Museum is embarking on a $3-million renovation campaign in September. The facility will be closed during construction, reopening in June 2002. Next year will see the launch of a $12-million capital campaign to help build an education wing, performance center, children’s gallery, expanded museum store and possibly a restaurant.

MOVIES

Sony: We’ll Keep Fiction on Screen

In the first agreement of its kind since two Sony Pictures executives were suspended in June for using fake reviews to promote movies, the company has signed a deal with Oregon officials promising never to do it again.

Oregon was one of several states to investigate the practice after the studio acknowledged using reviews by imaginary film critic David Manning to market films such as “A Knight’s Tale” and “The Patriot.”

In the pact, signed Monday in Marion Country Circuit Court, Sony said it would either use legitimate quotes or admit that the people touting the film were studio employees. For each case of marketing fraud, Sony agreed to pay a $25,000 fine to each “victim”--potentially everyone in the state who pays to see the movie.

Jan Margosian, a spokeswoman for the state attorney general’s office, called the practice “a basic violation” of Oregon’s consumer protection laws. “They always use puffery, but to fabricate somebody and put them up on a billboard ... that’s going too far.”

Sony Pictures Entertainment declined to comment on this or other pending suits. At least two moviegoers have filed their own class-action lawsuits in L.A., claiming that they--and other consumers nationwide--were deceived into buying tickets for bad films.

QUICK TAKES

A pizza-stained piece of paper signed by three of the four Beatles was sold for $24,000 at auction Monday night in Melbourne, Australia. John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison signed the paper during their 1964 tour of the country.... In the wake of its widely discussed format change, CNN Headline News averaged 178,000 viewers in prime time last week, a 14% increase versus the corresponding period a year ago. The channel, however, still ranked last among 45 basic and pay cable channels measured by Nielsen Media Research.... U2 will bring its Elevation summer tour back to North America for an additional 25 dates, according to the Times of London.... A U.S. District Court in Puerto Rico ordered actor Edward James Olmos to serve 20 days in prison on a misdemeanor charge for his efforts to halt the U.S. Navy’s bombing on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. On April 29, he and other protesters allegedly trespassed on a restricted naval base.... Susan Blakely will star as a spoiled film star breaking into TV in the La Jolla Playhouse production of the Howard M. Gould comedy “Diva,” opening Sept. 16.... To commemorate the 100th birthday of Walt Disney, ABC--which is owned by Walt Disney Co.--will air “Walt: The Man Behind the Myth” on “The Wonderful World of Disney” on Sept. 16.