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PLAYED IN THE USA (Learning Channel, debuting Oct. 6, 10 p.m. EDT). Martin Sheen is host for a 13-week series of documentaries and short films, produced by Stevenson Palfi and Blaine Dunlap, celebrating American music, from the making of the cast album for Company to profiles of singer Eartha Kitt, jazz/ rock fiddler Papa John Creach and legendary bassist and composer Charles Mingus.
ART
THE ART OF BABAR, National Academy of Design, New York City. Nearly 150 drawings and watercolors from the adventures of everybody's favorite elephant king by his personal biographers, Jean and Laurent de Brunhoff, along with art workshops for children, readings and a lecture. Through Nov. 3.
BEFORE FREEDOM CAME: AFRICAN-AMERICAN LIFE IN THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH, 1790-1865, Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond. More than 300 paintings, textiles and musical instruments that explore the lives of slaves and free blacks from the 18th century to the end of the Civil War. Through Dec. 13.
ETCETERA
CITIZEN KANE (T.H.E.). Fifty years after Charles Foster Kane whispered "Rosebud" and died, Turner Home Entertainment is offering a newly restored version of the Orson Welles classic in four different commemorative gift packs, including a half-hour documentary, the original trailer and even a script.
THE CARNEGIE HALL MUSEUM. New York City's refurbished musical mecca celebrates its centennial with a new permanent exhibit of 200 items. Included are such memorabilia as Toscanini's baton, Benny Goodman's clarinet and a 1964 debut program autographed by the Beatles.
FORBIDDEN BROADWAY
Imagine a duet of dueling megastars: the chandelier from Phantom of the Opera and the helicopter from Miss Saigon. Or a dance number that redubs Tommy Tune's somber, doomy Grand Hotel as Grim Hotel. Or a patter song to the tune of Brush Up Your Shakespeare, in which I Hate Hamlet star Nicol Williamson celebrates the joys of humbling his co-stars. This sort of humor -- a cunning blend of insiderish wit and broad clowning -- has made Forbidden Broadway an institution. Since 1982 it has played off-Broadway, enjoying the goodwill and legal cooperation of the very creators it spoofs, and has spawned a national tour and satellite troupes from Los Angeles to London. In the new, eighth edition, everyone shines. Susanne Blakeslee zings Julie Andrews' singing on the Tony Awards in I Couldn't Hit That Note. Mary Denise Bentley skewers Tyne Daly's performance as Mama Rose in Gypsy. Herndon Lackey is a melodramatizing Topol in Fiddler on the Roof, and Jeff Lyons is Jackie Mason -- but more so.