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

THEATER

Everybody Let’s Rock: Producer Rene Sheridan announced Friday that “Jailhouse Rock,” a new musical based on the 1957 Elvis Presley film, is about to hit the boards. The show will include Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller’s tunes from the movie with additional music from a yet-to-be-announced composer. Emmy and British Academy Award winners Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais wrote the book. “Jailhouse Rock” will have a workshop staging in L.A. in September and plans are in the works for a national tour.

PEOPLE

He’s Back: Actor Matthew Perry was back on the set of “Friends” this week as the hit NBC sitcom began production on its two-part season finale, a source close to the show reported. On Feb. 27, it was announced that Perry had checked into an undisclosed alcohol and drug rehabilitation center--the latest such stay for the actor, who has previously acknowledged an addiction to the prescription painkiller Vicodin. Spokesmen at NBC, Warner Bros. Television and Paramount Pictures, for whom Perry has been shooting the comedy “Servicing Sara,” referred questions to the actor’s publicist, Lisa Kasteler, who declined to comment.

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Dedicated to the One They Loved: The two surviving members of the original Mamas and the Papas, Michelle Phillips and Denny Doherty, will head the lineup at the Roxy on Tuesday at 8 p.m. in a memorial for the group’s leader, John Phillips, who died Sunday at age 65. Other friends and colleagues participating in the free event are the singer’s daughters, Mackenzie Phillips, Chynna Phillips and Bijou Phillips, Mamas and the Papas producer and manager Lou Adler, producer-musician Terry Melcher, the Beach Boys’ Mike Love and Bruce Johnston, Sean Lennon and actors Billy Baldwin and Ed Begley Jr. Other performers are expected to join the bill.

MOVIES

Another Win for Lonergan: Oscar-nominated writer-director Kenneth Lonergan has won the eighth annual Beatrice Wood Film Award--honoring the late visual artist’s indomitable spirit--for “You Can Count on Me.” The honoree is chosen annually by the past winners, who now include Hubert Cornfield, Robert Allan Ackerman, Henry Jaglom, Billy Bob Thornton, James Cameron, Sam Raimi and David Lynch.

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Oscar Bites: Everyone agrees that Julia Roberts’ winning a best actress trophy for “Erin Brockovich” is close to a sure thing on Sunday. But the Hollywood Wax Museum is betting its whole ball of wax on that outcome, having already added a replica Oscar to Roberts’ wax figure. . . . Directors Ted Demme and Clive Barker, actors Lynn Redgrave and Sanaa Lathan, critic Harry Knowles and comic Aisha Tyler have been lined up to discuss Sunday night’s Academy Award winners and losers on ABC’s “Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher After-Party.” The hourlong special will be live on the East Coast, but will air tape-delayed here after local news.

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A Kiss Is Still a Kiss: Mickey Rooney and Eva Marie Saint were honored Wednesday by the Motion Picture and Television Fund County House as participants in two of the 10 “Most Famous Screen Kisses.” The top kiss of all time was between Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in “Gone With the Wind.” Saint was named for her smooch with Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront,” and Rooney for his buss of Judy Garland in “Girl Crazy.” Other top 10 kisses included Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in “From Here to Eternity,” Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in “Casablanca,” and Cary Grant and Bergman in “Notorious.” The kisses were voted on by the residents of the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s retirement home.

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Preservation Project: The Directors Guild of America is partnering with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to conserve and preserve new film prints. The Conservation Collection--which aims to conserve prints to be used as masters in case a film’s original production elements are damaged--will cover feature films dating from November 2000. “Numerous well-known films survive today only because prints remained after the original negatives had been damaged or lost,” the DGA said. The Conservation Collection will be housed in the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s temperature-controlled vaults.

QUICK TAKES

Tickets go on sale Sunday for the Russian National Ballet’s “Swan Lake” at the Greek Theatre on April 28. . . .The next two casts have been announced for “The Vagina Monologues” at the Canon Theater. Wendie Malick, Christina Pickles and Tracee Ellis Ross will take the stage Tuesday through April 15, while Roma Maffia, Andrea Martin and Doris Roberts will star April 17-May 6. . . . Hollywood’s Silent Movie Theatre devotes the entire month of April to the films of Lon Chaney. The festival kicks off April 5 with “The Penalty.” Other films include “The Unholy Three,” “Oliver Twist” and “The Phantom of the Opera.”