The big doings on the arts and culture front this week start at City Hall.

Proposed arts grants by Cincinnati's arts and culture committee will go before City Council on Wednesday. A hefty portion of the $2.2 million designated for capital improvements and capital investments will target the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood surrounding the proposed site for the Art Academy of Cincinnati. That will be in keeping with a five-year plan outlined early this year.

Thursday morning, Councilman Jim Tarbell will lead a party of bankers and developers around the neighborhood. Guest of honor will be Christopher Velasco of Artspace in Minneapolis.

Artspace is a company with a Web site, www.artspaceprojects.org , filled with success stories of transforming neighborhoods in U.S. cities by creating affordable live/work space for artists through adaptive reuse of warehouses, schools and commercial buildings.

Even if you're not a banker or developer, you can hear Velasco and news of the 2003 city grants at Thursday's arts and culture committee meeting, 4 p.m. at the Art Academy site, 12th and Jackson streets. The meeting is on the sixth floor, above the BarrelHouse.

Cultural Trust: If you're wondering what's been going on with a Cincinnati Cultural Trust that also was announced a few months back, we have to wait a little longer.

Word is that it's politely waiting on the completion of this year's Fine Arts Fund campaign. The finale is slated for April 30.

'Raisin' returns: Tony Darnell Davis, a veteran of more than 30 years acting and directing on Cincinnati stages, returns to one of his favorites: Lorraine Hansberry's American classic A Raisin in the Sun.

Davis is directing the play about a middle-class black family's struggle for acceptance for Cincinnati Black Theatre Company. He says Raisin, which opens Thursday at the Arts Consortium, 1515 Linn St., West End, parallels his own feelings about family, life and the black community.

As for its issues - Davis enumerates "civil rights, women's rights, abortion, fair housing" - he sighs that even though Raisin was originally produced in 1959, "it's still pertinent in Cincinnati today."

Hansberry was the first African-American woman playwright to be produced on Broadway. Raisin, says Davis, "helped humanize African-Americans to the mainstream public."

Davis hasn't been doing much stage-time in recent years. "There just haven't been that many opportunities." He and Reggie Willis (on stage with Know Tribe in August Wilson's Two Trains Running) perform The Meeting, about a one-on-one between the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X "on request."

Davis, who teaches at University of Cincinnati, is adviser to the Black Arts Collaborative. These days he's devoting energy to trying to develop a space outside the College-Conservatory of Music for student productions.

"We have directors and choreographers chomping at the bit," he says.

Returning to Raisin is like spending time with "a welcome old friend," says Davis. "Every character owns a dream. Some are thwarted, some resurrected. By the end they're all sharing a common dream, the family's dream."

Kamau and Sushumna Means take the central roles of Walter and Ruth Younger.

Raisin continues weekends through April 27. Thursday's opening benefits Sickle Cell Parent and Family Network. April 26 will have a tribute to Edna Lindsey, grand dame of black theater in Cincinnati. Call the box office at 241-6060 or visit the Web site at www.cincyblacktheatre.com .

"Step out and see how it was 50 years ago and how it is now," Davis recommends. "See how much has changed and how much hasn't and how we still have to work together to get things done."

Protest pause: America Needs Fatima's deluge of pre-printed postcards objecting to Know Theatre Tribe's June production of Terrence McNally's Corpus Christi has slowed to a trickle, reports artistic director Matthew Pyle.

Corpus Christi, a parable about a contemporary gay man whose life parallels that of Christ, has been targeted in an anti-blasphemy campaign that has been going on for five years.

Know has been holding onto the mail and show director Michael Burnham has hit upon a way to put the cards to use: they'll be turned into papier mache and made into a cross that will be part of the Corpus Christi set.

For reservations and information call the theater at 300-5669.

Previews: Cincinnati Alternative Theatres will host "previews of coming attractions" before Saturday's 8 p.m. performance of Two Trains Running by Know Tribe at Gabriel's Corner.

Unreeling live on stage starting at about 7:30 p.m.: a scene from New Edgecliff's upcoming Square One; a song from blueS alleY caT (opening in July) and a brief "happening" by Performance Art Gallery, which will produce The Maids by Jean Genet in late May. And there will be free food.

Call 300-5669 for reservations and information.

CAT announces a special offer: see all three May shows (This I Our Youth at Know, Square One and The Maids) and receive pairs of free tickets to Corpus Christi (see above item) and In Flame by Women's Theatre Initiative.

Off Off-Broadway: Queen City Off-Broadway is moving way off Broadway. Queen City has moved out of Plush, the cabaret upstairs at Carol's on Main, and will debut Theatre Thursdays at The Greenwich, 2440 Gilbert Ave.

Artistic director Lyle Benjamin promises a production as soon as May and is hoping to remount Queen City''s recent success Master Harold...and the Boys.

Also planned for May, BillEll Productions (that's Bill Hartnett and Ellie Shepherd) will revisit Visiting Mr. Green, a Chicago hit that tanked in the Aronoff's Fifth Third during the dog days of summer two years ago.

This time BillEll will take the show, featuring Mike Moskowitz and Jeff DeMaria, to Newport's Monmouth Theatre May 22-June 1.

In Middletown: Rising Phoenix in Middletown is locking in its 2003-04 season. The four shows, dates TBA, will be Godspell (October), a new edition of Taking Christmas to the Troops (December), The Miracle Worker (March) and The Dining Room (May).

'Moon' reading: Next up for Cincinnati Playwright Initiative: exec director Chuck Wente's Son of the Moon, a consideration of Orson Welles, will be read at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Aronoff's Fifth Third Bank Theatre.

Chip Smith, Bob Allen, Sunshine Cappelletti and Elaine Wilson are among the readers. Greg Procaccino is taking a break from duties at Kincaid Regional Theatre to direct. $5 at the door.

On Broadway: If you're headed for New York, know that Cincinnati native Tracy Shayne dances into the role of Roxie Hart in Chicago on Broadway starting Tuesday.

In Chicago, you can catch School for Creative and Performing Arts and Wright State grad Rebecca Finnegan in Stephen Sondheim's Company.

Finnegan has been working in Chicago for two years. Her work in Company earned nice words in the local dailies. "Expertly played," opined the Chicago Sun-Times. The Chicago Tribune critic judged her "splendid" and her rendition of "The Ladies Who Lunch" suitably venomous.

Company is being produced by The Porchlight Theatre at the Theater Building.

Arts lecture: Doug Hebert, director of arts learning with National Endowment for the Arts, will discuss "The Arts: Don't Leave Any Child Without Them" at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in UC's Werner Recital Hall. Hebert's appearance is part of the Joan Cochran Rieveschl Series on Issues in the Arts.

The free lecture will address arts education and how recent legislation will affect its place in the curriculum. It's recommended for anyone interested in what's happening in arts ed, including the current shift away from traditional programs and toward a focus on early childhood and community-based programming.

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com.