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

THE ARTS

Robbins Returns to Bolster the Ranks

Tim Robbins has returned to active duty as artistic director of the Actors’ Gang--the Hollywood theater company he co-founded. In recent years, he says, the Gang had become “a bit of a clubhouse and not enough of a temple.”

After a stretch in which his contribution was more fiscal than hands-on, he’ll direct Ariane Mnouchkine’s “Mephisto,” which will run in repertory with Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” directed by French actor Georges Bigot, in the fall.

Robbins--who has starred in such films as “Bull Durham” and “The Shawshank Redemption” and directed “Dead Men Walking”--declined to specify exact opening dates because the company is “developing a vocabulary for our future,” he says, and might require “months of training.”

Alex Theatre Cancels Dance Festival

In the wake of Ellen Ketchum’s departure as executive director of Glendale’s Alex Theatre, her FeetSpeak Dance Festival, scheduled for three performances on Aug. 25 and 26, has been canceled.

The festival, formerly presented at Occidental College, earned acclaim for its contemporary edge and its mix of European and locally based artists. Max Howard, chair of the Alex Regional Theatre Board, told The Times that it would be inappropriate to present the event without Ketchum’s involvement, adding that there would be no further changes to the dance programming planned for the Alex this year.

Ketchum is vacationing in Europe and could not be reached for comment.

POP MUSIC

Memorial Today for Skynyrd Bass Player

The Lynyrd Skynyrd concert scheduled for tonight at Universal Amphitheatre has been indefinitely postponed following the death last week of the group’s bass player, Leon Wilkeson.

The 49-year-old musician, a founding member of the famed Southern rock band, will be remembered today with a memorial service in Jacksonville, Fla., the city where he was found dead Friday in a motel room. Wilkeson suffered from lung and liver maladies for years, and preliminary investigations point to death from natural causes.

The band has suspended its tour through Aug. 9. Tickets for the Universal Amphitheatre performance will be honored at the rescheduled date, to be announced in upcoming weeks, a venue spokesman said Monday.

MOVIES

Pennebaker to Be Given Award by Pal Wexler

Documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker will be honored Friday night at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in an event that will include live music and a screening of Pennebaker’s classic movie about Bob Dylan’s 1965 British concert tour, “Don’t Look Back.” Preceding the film, performers such as James Intveld, Eddie Baytos and King Cotton will reinterpret Dylan, giving his music a zydeco, blues, jazz and reggae twist.

Pennebaker says it was an uphill battle getting “Don’t Look Back” into theaters in 1967 because it broke the Hollywood mold. It was very “in your face,” he recalls--shot from the “underside of the floorboards.”

“People thought it looked like a porno film,” the 76-year-old director told The Times Tuesday. “Black and white, poorly focused, kind of ratty looking. Later on, it was seen as a new kind of filmmaking--what the French call cinema verite . The kind of film Dylan would be in if he were going to be in a movie, because he was a new kind of poet.”

Academy Award-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler (“Bound for Glory,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”) will present the Mentor Award to Pennebaker--a friend since the 1950s. “In ‘Don’t Look Back,’ Penny--who’s a bull--really went for it,” Wexler, 79, told The Times. “If there was a choice between technique--proper framing, exposure--and image, what was in front of the camera won out.”

Pennebaker, who went on to direct “Monterey Pop” and the Oscar-nominated “The War Room” and also produced this year’s “Startup.com,” will be interviewed Thursday on KPCC-FM’s (89.3) “Talk of the City” at 2 p.m. and on KCET-TV’s “Life and Times” at 6:30 p.m.

RADIO

Listeners Invited to Vote on ‘Beatles’ Host

KLSX-FM (97.1 ) has been “auditioning” five different people to anchor its Sunday morning “Breakfast With the Beatles” program after the January death of show originator Deirdre O’Donoghue. Now the station is asking listeners to select the permanent host.

Fans will be able to cast their votes for either former Dramarama guitarist Chris Carter, KCRW-FM (89.9) and O’Donoghue protegee Tricia Halloran, Beatles historian and TV personality Martin Lewis, pop expert Michael Quarterman or Rhino Records promotions director Jim Neil via a feature on the station’s Web site, https://www.fmtalki.com today through the end of August. The winner is due to start hosting the show on Sept. 2.

QUICK TAKES

Lucille Ball will be the seventh honoree on a commemorative postage stamp in the Legends of Hollywood series. A ceremony to mark the stamp’s introduction will be held Monday at 2 p.m. at the Hollywood History Museum, 1600 N. Highland Ave .... Dr. Phil McGraw, a regular on the “Oprah Winfrey” show, will get his own syndicated TV show. “Dr. Phil,” which will deal with human behavior, was created and developed by Winfrey and her Harpo Productions. It will air locally on KNBC-TV Channel 4 .... The Los Angeles premiere of Terrence McNally’s 1998 off-Broadway play “Corpus Christi”--a contemporary drama paralleling the New Testament story of Jesus--will take place Aug. 17 at 8 p.m. at the Lillian Theater, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood .... The Orange County Museum of Art has named a new curator of contemporary art. Irene E. Hofman, a New Yorker who, most recently, served as exhibitions curator of the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., will join the staff Oct. 1 .... The Hollywood Entertainment Museum has extended its “Happy Birthday, Marilyn” exhibition through Sept. 3. The museum, at 7021 Hollywood Blvd., opened the exhibit of rare Monroe memorabilia on June 1--what would have been the screen icon’s 75th birthday--and originally planned to close it on Aug. 15 .... The pop-rock band Smash Mouth has canceled its Midwest tour dates after the death of the lead singer’s infant son. Presley Scott Harwell, son of Steve Harwell and Michelle Laroque, died Saturday morning of complications due to acute lymphatic leukemia .... Jim Courier, Carl Lewis, Martina Navratilova and Steve Young have joined the list of athletes competing on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” to be aired starting Sept. 10.