Studio

A box about the size of two loaves of bread is the center of a feud between the Radnor Citizens Cable Communications Council and the Radnor High School video coordinator. The box is a modulator, belonging to Adelphia Cable Communications, that people who have taped educational events must use in order to show the tapes on cable television. The council, a group of volunteers who produce programs on cable, wants the modulator removed from the high school studio and relocated at the Adelphia studio at 110 W. Lancaster Ave. The decision ultimately will be made by the township commissioners.

W ith a potential screenwriters' strike threatening to shutter West Coast film production, one major studio has made what many Hollywood producers are applauding as a gutsy move: producing a $120 million motion picture with no script whatsoever. The film, based entirely on the Burbank Yellow Pages, will be released this Christmas. The idea of making a Hollywood blockbuster from the Yellow Pages came about almost by accident. "A bunch of us were having drinks, and I said that people would go see Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts if they were reading the phone book," said an executive close to the production.

In the 44 years of his tortured existence, Jackson Pollock never resolved the psychological and emotional conflicts that frequently transformed him into a boorish, drunken social misfit. But beginning in the early winter of 1945, when he moved to the hamlet of Springs on the south fork of Long Island, the painter managed to subdue his personal demons for a few relatively tranquil years, during which he revolutionized abstract art. Until the summer of 1988, Springs, which is about five miles north of East Hampton's center, didn't attract many tourists, because there wasn't much to see there, aside from the graves of Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner, in Green River Cemetery.

Grace Gonglewski, the tall, velvet-voiced actor Philadelphia theatergoers have been seeing on professional stages for two decades, was standing in front of a microphone the other day. At this moment, she was not being Hedda Gabler, or Shakespeare's shrewish Kate, or a crackhead or a lesbian schoolteacher or George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara. A few hours later in rehearsal, she would become Claire, her current role in the 1812 Productions version of David Mamet's comedy Boston Marriage.

BEST KNOWN as the surrealist auteur behind "Eraserhead," "Twin Peaks" and "Blue Velvet," David Lynch is one of America's most acclaimed film directors. Having long written and performed music for his films - often in collaboration with others, most notably composer Angelo Badalamenti and Polish pianist Marek Zebrowski - this fall sees the three-time Academy Award nominee make his debut as a solo recording artist. With the release yesterday of his debut studio album, "Crazy Clown Time," on Sunday Best Recordings/PIAS, Lynch talks to Billboard.

The Hit Factory - the famed Manhattan music studio where John Lennon spent his last hours, Bruce Springsteen laid down tracks for "Born in the U.S.A.," and Whitney Houston hit her highest notes - is shutting its doors. Doomed by the digital revolution, the rock 'n' roll temple's owners said this week they will move their West 54th Street headquarters to a smaller facility in Miami within a month. Music producer Jerry Ragovoy opened the studio on West 48th Street in 1968, initially as a place in the city where his own artists could record.

YOU'VE SEEN Wally Neibart's art. You just don't realize it. Over a span of some 60 years, his illustrations appeared in numerous magazines, from Playboy and Philadelphia magazine, to the National Wild Turkey Federation publication, in local newspapers, including the Daily News, in books, in countless advertisements, on billboards, and, if you happened to be at the Shore at certain times, on your raft. Some of the drawings that he did for fun couldn't be reprinted in a family newspaper.

Sam Katz looked down from a control room window into the pit of the television studio as it swarmed with technicians preparing it for battle. He caught the eye of some acquaintances, lifted his right arm and flexed his bicep. Frank Rizzo strode into the studio, wearing a suit of police blue, set his face in a tough look, shot his cuffs and waited for the cameras. Ron Castille, wearing plastered hair and a prosecutorial sneer, took his place behind his lectern, ready for action.

Tony Musante in "The Big Knife," a play by Clifford Odets. Directed by Malcolm Black, set and lighting by Paul Wonsek, costumes by Kathleen Blake. Presented by the Walnut Street Theatre Co. at 9th and Walnut streets through Jan. 31. Like a resurrected time capsule, a revival production of a 38-year-old play evokes a certain curiosity as a repository of cultural artifacts. "The Big Knife" reminds us that in 1949 the national symbol of the United States was the cocker spaniel.

Al Powell naturally was frustrated as he watched the rehearsal studio business he'd worked hard to build go down the tubes, thanks to somebody else's mistakes. Powell, 28, wasn't an executive. He was a sound and lighting man, so there wasn't much he could do about it. But from where he sat, being a businessman didn't look so tough. When the business finally went under, he and two other employees decided to find out first-hand what it would be like to cut their own paychecks. "Last year, about April, it became pretty clear that the company was going to fold.