Laura Zucker

In a setback for the Screen Actors Guild, Steve Diamond, an associate law professor and an advisor to the AFL-CIO, has removed himself from the running for the union's top staff position. Although Diamond was the leading candidate to be the guild's executive director, he could not reach agreement with the union on the terms of his contract. Sources close to the guild said Diamond withdrew his name from consideration Wednesday after seeking a higher salary than the union was willing to pay.

Many of the key awards came in pairs when the eighth annual Lester Horton Dance Awards were announced during a ceremony on the plaza in front of the Japan America Theatre in Little Tokyo on Friday. Named for the Los Angeles modern dance pioneer who died in 1953, the Hortons honor Southern California achievement during the past year and are voted by members of the Dance Resource Center, a local service organization.

The annual L.A. County Holiday Celebration, a Christmas Eve tradition at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for 46 years, is upon us. This year, though, the marathon of free, live entertainment is returning with some big changes. "We threw all the performance chips up in the air and let them fall in a whole new way," says Laura Zucker, executive director of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.

Los Angeles County encouraged local school districts on Wednesday to reinvigorate arts education during the next decade, saying it is a valuable goal even in this time of tight budgets. In a new Regional Blueprint for Arts Education, the county is urging the 82 school districts to include arts in their core curriculum and to train teachers to meet California standards in arts education.

Pasadena-based California Music Theatre must raise $250,000 by the end of February to open its season with "My Fair Lady" on March 6--and another $250,000 by March 30 in order to complete the season as scheduled, theater officials say. A long-running dispute with the Musicians Union and an unexpected pay raise for stage crews at Pasadena Civic Auditorium, which California Music Theatre rents for its productions, were cited as the reasons for a $186,000 shortfall from the planned budget.

California arts and cultural organizations have a new way to measure their economic and cultural effect on the communities they serve. They are being invited to join the California Cultural Data Project, part of a state-by-state online data collection system that began in Pennsylvania in 2004 through a partnership of private and public arts funders.

Sprawling Los Angeles has long been a challenge for the intrepid cultural tourist. How do you find the many attractions? Help has just arrived: the on-line Los Angeles County Cultural Calendar. Part of the www.experienceLA.com website, the calendar listed 1,178 attractions or events as of Friday morning.

Steve Diamond, an associate law professor and an advisor to the AFL-CIO, has emerged as the leading candidate for the top staff position at the volatile Screen Actors Guild. A search committee led by SAG President Alan Rosenberg is expected to recommend to the union's national board that Diamond be hired as executive director of the 120,000-member guild, a person familiar with the matter said Wednesday.

More controversy seems likely in the ongoing debate between the union representing stage actors and the operators of Los Angeles theaters of 99 seats or fewer. The theater operators appear poised to reject the union's latest compromise offer. Actors' Equity Assn. on Wednesday announced that its council in New York had "unanimously approved 33 amendments" to its Actors' 99-Seat Theatre Plan and had changed the name to the Los Angeles 99-Seat Theatre Plan.