Monster Mash: Breaking news and headlines

-- What to do when a show flops and the bills aren't paid? For the producer of "A Christmas Carol": Remount the show.

-- Petition calls for the Obama administration to create an "arts stimulus package."

-- Forget secretary of the Arts -- how about a White House arts advisor instead? Another view.

-- The American Institute of Architects lobbies for $100 billion in federal stimulus funds.

-- Who says "art" isn't selling? A prop portrait of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy goes for about $16,500 at auction.

-- Creating art, on the other hand, is getting tough on the streets of Paris.

-- Broadway makes a showing at the Oscar nominations with nods going to "Doubt," "Frost/Nixon," "The Reader's" David Hare ("The Year of Magical Thinking," "The Vertical Hour") and Stephen Daldry ("Billy Elliot"), "Slumdog Millionaire's" A.R. Rahman ("Bombay Dreams") and "In Bruges' " Martin McDonagh ("The Pillowman"), among others.

-- A $173-million national art collection, which includes works by Andy Warhol, Gilbert & George and Damien Hirst, will be shown up and down Britain.

-- Los Angeles Philharmonic to announce its first season with Gustavo Dudamel.

-- Egypt asks Sweden to return 212 artifacts taken out of the country in the 1920s.

-- Tony Kushner discusses the value of humor in playwriting.

-- Like everyone else, Arizona's arts groups are suffering.

-- Lisa Fung

Photo (top): Christopher Lloyd as Scrooge in " A Christmas Carol." Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times.

Photo (bottom): Portrait of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. Credit: BBC News