Monster Mash: Museum to go back to nature; son to get Ansel Adams photos; special Tonys announced

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-- The great outdoors: The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County will announce today it will be adding a 3.5-acre $30-million park with 11 themed areas that are designed to put the natural back in natural history. (Los Angeles Times)

-- Not for sale: The bankrupt Fresno Metropolitan Museum will return six Ansel Adams photographs donated by Adams’ son and his wife instead of selling them at auction -- a move that will help settle a lawsuit the couple had filed against the now-closed museum. (Associated Press)

-- Special prizes: Actress Marian Seldes and playwright Alan Ayckbourn will receive lifetime achievement honors at the 2010 Tony Awards ceremony on June 13 in New York. Actor David Hyde Pierce will receive the Isabelle Stevenson Award for humanitarian work. (Los Angeles Times)

-- Dark cloud: The effects of volcanic ash on air travel have taken a toll on Britain’s orchestras, stranding some overseas, keeping others stuck at home and leaving a few facing financial disaster. (Daily Telegraph)

-- Flying fingers: Ever the showman, Chinese pianist Lang Lang played Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ using the Magic Piano app on his new iPad during an encore for a concert in San Francisco. (Wall Street Journal)

-- Long run: Hal Holbrook, who has appeared in ‘Mark Twain Tonight!’ for 56 years, gave a special performance of his one-man show Wednesday -- the centenary of the author’s death -- in Elmira, N.Y., where Twain wrote many of his best-known works. Holbrook is scheduled to bring ‘Twain’ to the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza on May 5. (Associated Press)

-- Rising star: Susanna Phillips, a 28-year-old soprano from Alabama, has won the Metropolitan Opera’s Beverly Sills Artist Award for young singers. (New York Times)

Also in the Los Angeles Times: Rick Schultz reviews pianist Emanuel Ax at Walt Disney Concert Hall; David Choe, who went from petty criminal to international artist, has a new show in Beverly Hills; the Broad Stage in Santa Monica announces its biggest season yet.

-- Karen Wada