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

TELEVISION

Bowled Over by Theme Songs

The TV academy will pay tribute to the music of television with an Aug. 26 program at the Hollywood Bowl called “Don’t Touch That Remote--A Celebration of Television Music.” Actress Mary Tyler Moore will co-host the event with conductor John Mauceri, who will lead his Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in performances that will be accompanied by footage of the programs on which the music appeared. The Hallmark Channel is co-presenting the event, which will feature a salute to the “Hallmark Hall of Fame” library of TV movies.

Showtime Looks at Youth Violence

Cable’s Showtime is making “Bang, Bang You’re Dead,” a movie exploring the inner thoughts of a student who shoots and kills his parents and classmates, to air in 2002. The film, to star “Ed’s” Tom Cavanagh and “The West Wing’s” Janel Moloney, among others, is based on a one-act play of the same name by William Mastrosimone, who wrote the work after his son’s school was closed for a day following an anonymous death threat made by a student. It was first performed in 1999 by students who survived a school shooting in Springfield, Ore., and has since been performed in schools and communities throughout the world.

Rolling With Scheduling Punches

ABC Television Network President Alex Wallau said Tuesday that the move of “20/20” from its longtime Friday slot--and possibly off the air for nearly two months--this fall was not “some kind of signal” that the network is less committed to ABC News. Calling ABC News “the jewel of our network,” Wallau cited a long list of recent steps ABC has taken to support news, from building a Times Square studio to airing millennium coverage, but added that “ABC News is going to change” as the business does. “I’m not going to say that [the move to Wednesday so “Once and Again” can air Friday] doesn’t represent a negative for ‘20/20’--it does,” he said, but any damage “will be overcome rapidly” because of the strength of the show. . . . Meanwhile, ABC News was buoyed by last week’s evening news ratings, which put “World News Tonight With Peter Jennings” in first place, after a 53-week winning streak for “NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw.”

THEATER

Laurels for Touring Productions

“Ragtime” was named best musical and “Dame Edna: The Royal Tour”--which began performances at the Shubert Theatre on Tuesday--was named best play in the National Broadway Theatre Awards, a new fan-voted competition for commercial stage tours sponsored by the League of American Theatres and Producers. Musical acting honors went to Louise Pitre of “Mamma Mia!” and “Parade’s” David Pittu, while “Dame Edna’s” Barry Humphries and Sherri Parker Lee of “The Vagina Monologues” were named best actor and actress in a play. Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall won the directing prize for “Cabaret.”

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Tenors Boost Beijing’s Olympic Bid

The Three Tenors--Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo--will perform in the former Imperial Palace in Beijing on July 23 with Chinese tenors and sopranos in a concert co-sponsored by the city’s Olympic bid committee. An audience of about 30,000 is expected for the concert, which aims to spotlight the Chinese capital at a key moment in the bidding process for the 2008 Olympics. Istanbul, Turkey; Osaka, Japan; Paris; and Toronto also are competing to host the games, with the winner to be named July 13.

QUICK TAKES

Sarah Ferguson, the duchess of York, will be a guest anchor on Thursday’s “KTLA Morning News” (7-9 a.m.). She will join anchor Carlos Amezcua, temporarily filling the seat left vacant by the recent departure of longtime anchor Barbara Beck. . . . Whitney Houston will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the inaugural BET Awards to be held June 19 at the Paris Las Vegas hotel in Las Vegas. The two-hour ceremony--to be broadcast live on the cable network--will honor singers, rappers, film stars and athletes. Steve Harvey and Cedric “The Entertainer” will host. . . . Art collectors Peter and Eileen Norton and their foundation have donated $2 million to the UCLA Hammer Museum toward a new 1,500-square-foot contemporary art gallery that will be named the Eileen Harris Norton Family Gallery. The gallery is part of a planned $25-million renovation of the Westwood museum that’s scheduled for completion in early 2003. . . . “ ‘N Sync: Bigger Than Live,” the giant-screen filmed version of the band’s “No Strings Attached” concert tour, will begin its open-ended L.A. County run on July 13 at the Universal CityWalk Imax. . . . Spanish-language deejay Martha Shalhoub has moved to the new KXOL-FM (96.3) after 25 years on KLVE-FM (107.5). Shalhoub’s new show airs weekdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.