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

THE ARTS

‘Billy Elliot’ Inspires Young Male Dancers

London’s Royal Ballet has succumbed to the “Billy Elliot” effect, it seems.

For the first time in its 76-year history, the institution has accepted more boys than girls--a development that officials there chalk up, in part, to the release of the 2000 film in which the 11-year-old son of a coal miner leaves home to pursue a ballet career.

This year, the enrollment at both the Royal Ballet’s junior and senior schools will be made up of 14 boys and only 10 girls. Last year, eight boys and 12 girls joined White Lodge, the junior school for 11- to 16-year-olds to which the film’s hero won acceptance. “There has been a significant increase in the number of boys who want full-time training and are willing to take on ballet as a vocation,” said Gailene Stock, director of the Royal Ballet School. “The film has certainly had some effect on the younger boys. A number ... have said that ‘Billy Elliot’ made them feel more comfortable about telling people they are ballet dancers.”

Architect Sought for Lincoln Center Design

Aiming to rebuild Manhattan’s 40-year-old Avery Fisher Hall as part of a $1.2-billion redevelopment effort at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, officials of the Lincoln Center and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra have invited symphonic-hall design proposals from a short list of big-name architects.

Though current plans call for a 2,400-seat symphony hall at a cost of $340 million, much of the redevelopment is still under discussion as the center’s 13 resident cultural organizations continue to raise funds and skirmish over details.

Earlier this month, Lincoln Center leaders invited 11 firms to submit proposals for a new symphony hall, with interviews to follow in May and selection in October. Rebecca Robertson, executive director of the Lincoln Center Constituent Development Project, said the architects invited to compete included the following: Frank Gehry; Renzo Piano; Sir Norman Foster; Arata Isozaki; Toyo Ito; Richard Meier; the firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Rafael Moneo; Rem Koolhaas; Jean Nouvel and Christian de Portzamparc.

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MOVIES

Sharon Documentary Pulled From Festival

The Toronto Jewish Film Festival has scrapped plans to show “The Accused,” an award-winning documentary on Ariel Sharon, Israel’s controversial prime minister, because of security concerns. The BBC film, investigating Sharon’s involvement in the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, was to be screened today.

“This seems to be a more explosive year, security-wise, so we’re just trying to be careful,” festival director Helen Zukerman told the Toronto Star. “We don’t want it co-opted by some special-interest groups that might seize it to make their own political statement.”

Zukerman insists that the decision to drop the film was made not because of external pressure, but because it could divert attention away from the rest of the offerings. “We don’t want the film to become the festival,” she said.

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Journalist Sues Disney, New York Post

Entertainment journalist Nikki Finke has filed a $10-million suit against the New York Post, its parent company News Corp. and the Walt Disney Co., claiming the studio pressured the newspaper to fire her in the wake of two Jan. 29 stories she wrote about litigation surrounding Disney’s “Winnie the Pooh” license. She was dismissed Feb. 19.

Filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday, the suit charges the defendants with breach of contract, slander and libel. The only reason given for her termination, she said, was a Disney complaint about her pieces.

Finke maintains that the two media giants collaborated to silence a truthful report about the studio’s destruction of documents and the economic consequences of losing the license.

“In the annals of journalism, this has to rank as one of the supreme acts of cowardice by a newspaper owner currying favor with a major advertiser and business partner,” said Finke’s attorney, Pierce O’Donnell. “Nikki Finke is the innocent victim of a colossal abuse of corporate power.”

Disney declined to comment Monday, but a spokesman for the Post called the lawsuit “ridiculous” and said “the notion that the Post gave favorable treatment to Disney is laughable.”

An Upside to Divorce--L.A. Style

In the “Only in L.A.” category: All Southland residents who were officially divorced in April or May of this year will be admitted free to Steven Dworman’s new independent film “Divorce--The Musical,” opening Friday at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica.

People must show certified divorce papers at the box office in order to take advantage of the offer.

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QUICK TAKES

The cast of “Follies,” which comes to the Wadsworth Theatre June 15-23, will include Vikki Carr, Patty Duke, Harry Groener, Carol Lawrence and Grover Dale....PBS will introduce a new weekly international documentary series, “Wide Angle,” on July 11. The program will be produced by WNET in New York and hosted by journalist Daljit Dhaliwal and former assistant Secretary of State James P. Rubin....After failing to come to terms with syndicator King World, Whoopi Goldberg is leaving “Hollywood Squares” at the end of this season.

Elaine Dutka