Repertorio Espanol in New York City offers four directors a forum beginning July 22 when the winners of the Van Lier Fellowship stage works at the Gramercy Arts Theatre.

The fellowship, funded by the New York Community Trust and administered through the professional Spanish-language Repertorio troupe, is designed to give New York City directors under the age of 30 their first professional credit at an established theatre, a place where they have artistic control and financial support to back up their artistic choices.

The 1999 Van Lier Directing Fellows are Ignacio Spadavecchia, Ricardo Santana, Jorge Gonzalez and Daniel Bort.

Each director is given a modest production budget and chooses a play, in Spanish, to direct.

The Van Lier Directing Project runs July 22-Aug. 29 at the Gramercy Arts, 138 E. 27th St. Tickets are $12. Call (212) 889-2850 for information. The Van Lier schedule includes:

€ Venecia (Venice), Jorge Accame's play about an Argentinean brothel owner who is blind and dying and wishes to meet her former lover in Venice, directed by Ignacio Spadavecchia. The play won a 1999 playwriting award in Buenos Aires. July 22, 23, 25.

€ Infieles (The Unfaithful One), Marco Antonio de la Parra's 1987 Chilean drama about two couples and betrayed relationships, directed by Ricardo Santana. Aug. 5-6, 8.

€ La Que Sabemos Aburrido (What We Know is Boring), a comedy with a suggestion of tragedy about a group of theatre actors struggling to make a play interesting, written and directed by Jorge Gonzalez. Aug. 12-12, 15.

€ La Senorita Julia (Miss Julie), a Venezuela-set adaptation of August Strindberg's classic naturalistic one-act about gender and social differences, directed by Daniel Bort. The script remains intact, but this version of the play adds the Latin American racial classification codes of the Spanish, Black and Indian cultures which determine the fate of the aristocratic Julia and her servant Juan. Aug. 26-27, 29.

-- By Kenneth Jones