Jane Alexander

Winners will be announced in ceremonies to be televised at 9 tonight on WBAL (Channel 11).* Play: "Angels in America: Millennium Approaches," Tony Kushner; "Someone Who'll Watch Over Me," Frank McGuinness; The Sisters Rosensweig," Wendy Wasserstein; "The Song of Jacob Zulu" Tug Yourgrau.* Musical: "Blood Brothers," "Kiss of the Spider Woman," "The Goodbye Girl," "The Who's Tommy."* Revival: "Anna Christie," "Saint Joan," "The Price," "Wilder, Wilder, Wilder."* Actor, Play: K. Todd Freeman, "The Song of Jacob Zulu"; Ron Leibman, "Angels in America: Millennium Approaches"; Liam Neeson, "Anna Christie"; Stephen Rea, "Someone Who'll Watch Over Me."

WASHINGTON -- Jim Stockdale was doing the breakfast dishes one day in March when his old friend Ross Perot called to ask him a favor.Could he list Admiral Stockdale as his vice-presidential candidate on petitions that needed to be filed in certain states? Admiral Stockdale would not have to campaign, and he would be replaced by someone else down the line.Admiral Stockdale agreed on the spot, then returned to his woras a fellow at the Hoover Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., where he studies Greek philosophy.

Mary Pat Hughes, a Baltimore jazz, rock and rhythm and blues singer whose 2 Funkin' Heavy band had a wide following, died Tuesday of leukemia at Johns Hopkins Hospital.She was 38 and lived in Hamilton.Ms. Hughes, who was diagnosed with leukemia in October and had undergone a bone marrow transplant, continued playing until earlier this spring.Described by the Washington Blade as a "hard rockin' brunette in tight jeans who plays three kinds of saxophones and sings like a bottle of Jack Daniels," Ms. Hughes energized audiences with a voice that was reminiscent of Janis Joplin or Tina Turner.

BARBRA STREISAND spoke out for the National Endowment for the Arts at Harvard. Madonna and R.E.M. have hit the radio with public-service ads extolling the NEA. But it was Garth Brooks, Kenny G and Michael Bolton -- pop stars ranging from middle-of-the-road to Muzak -- who stared down the Republican majority in the 104th Congress last week. And it was Congress that blinked.The three musicians lobbied the Hill for the arts endowment on Tuesday. On Thursday the House voted 260 to 168 to defeat an amendment tripling the cut in the 1995 NEA budget -- with 75 Republicans, Newtish freshmen among them, in the majority.

Partial list of nominations announced yesterday by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Comedy series: Arrested Development, Fox; Desperate Housewives, ABC; Everybody Loves Raymond, CBS; Scrubs, NBC; Will & Grace, NBC. Drama series: Deadwood, HBO; Lost, ABC; Six Feet Under, HBO; 24, Fox; The West Wing, NBC. Miniseries: Elvis, CBS; Empire Falls, HBO; The 4400, USA; The Lost Prince, PBS. Made for television movie: : Lackawanna Blues, HBO; The...

AMERICA'S artists have learned the hard way in recent years that, as Nathaniel Hawthorne put it, "life is made up of marble and mud."Filmmakers, sculptors, painters and other creators have been pelted with political ads, televised sermonettes and lurid direct mail that impugn their morals and patriotism.Unless the mudslinging is replaced with a positive vision of the importance of culture to individuals and the nation, the arts will continue to take a beating.Congress recently showed the fickleness of its support by shaving appropriations for the National Endowment for the Arts.

Washington. -- "Our job,'' says Everett Albers, ''is to get the people of North Dakota busy writing to Congress.'' In defense of agriculture subsidies? No, Mr. Albers, quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, is executive director of the North Dakota Humanities Council and wants North Dakotans to rally in defense of the National Endowment for the Humanities.Extinction may be the fate of the NEH and its Great Society siblings, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

BOB SOMERBY, a Baltimore comedian, is one of the few people on the planet who makes a living telling jokes.But Somerby is deadly serious about education. He taught fifth grade in Baltimore for a dozen years and knows something about the multiple problems facing city schools. One of them is not a lack of standards, Somerby believes. President Clinton's call for "national" standards is a joke, he says. And Somerby knows from jokes.He also makes a good point. There is no shortage of education standards in Maryland, or in Baltimore.

WASHINGTON -- The National Endowment for the Arts is preparing to fight for survival as House Republican leaders take aim at its budget and challenge its very existence.The fight, likely to last throughout the year, turns on a fundamental question: What is the appropriate role of the federal government in financing the arts?"I would argue that it is not within the scope of Washington, not within the scope of the federal government, to be involved in funding arts activities around America," said Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio, who is chairman of the Republican conference.

Washington. -- When the Academy Awards were broadcast last month, Hollywood's biggest stars and moguls took advantage of the ceremony to try to rally public support for the National Endowment for the Arts.Everyone knows the NEA supports major institutions like the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, as well as folk artists, symphonies, dance and Shakespeare companies.But Arthur Hiller, president of the academy, did not go into details when he began the most-watched, prime-time, family-oriented television show of the year with a political call to arms.