Monster Mash: Banksy show opens; Hadid's Chicago project delayed; OCMA art sale questions; Domingo in Verona

--Art surprise: If you're not able to get to Bristol, Britain, here's a glimpse of Banksy's exhibition, which opened over the weekend to thousands of viewers.

--Complex construction: Delays stall the opening of Zaha Hadid's pavilion in Chicago's Millennium Park

--Sales criticized: Orange County Museum of Art criticized for quietly selling paintings to a private collector.

--Star power: Verona Opera Festival to feature Placido Domingo.

--Big winner: Times art critic Christopher Knight wins top criticism honors at the Los Angeles Press Club awards. Music critic Mark Swed, pop music critic Ann Powers and architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne were finalists.

--Endeavor favorite: Architect Neil Denari selected to design interior of new WME talent agency in Beverly Hills.

--Preventive measures: Museums reassess security in wake of shootings at D.C.'s Holocaust museum

--Sitting out: Susan Boyle takes a break after three performances with "Britain's Got Talent" tour.

--Joke's on him: Disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich makes a stage appearance in Chicago comedy show.

--Best of the bunch: Russian singer named winner of BBC Cardiff Singer of the World award.

--Hernia operation: Emergency surgery forces Seiji Ozawa to cancel three Vienna Philharmonic concerts.   

--Royal treatment: Queen bestows honors upon several arts individuals, including actors Alan Cumming and Jonathan Pryce. The full list. 

--Show-stopping moment: "God of Carnage" vomit snafu stops the Tony Award-winning play.

-- Lisa Fung

Caption: "Banksy versus Bristol Museum," one of the largest single collections of guerrilla artist Banksy's works, was organized under tight security and installed in just 36 hours, with only a handful of museum staff aware it was even happening. Credit: Matt Cardy / Getty Images

'Pippin' at the Taper: Take the kids?

OK, so the new production of "Pippin" at the Mark Taper Forum isn't exactly "Sesame Street Live," as you can probably tell from the photo above. (If you want to play a game of "Six Degrees of Separation" to see how the two shows are linked, though, put on your thinking cap and click through to the jump.) But over at our sister blog Pop & Hiss, Times pop music critic Ann Powers has an essay titled "Liberal Parents Take Note: 'Pippin' Is Fun for Kids."

In her post, Powers talks about taking her 5-year-old daughter, Bebe, to see the musical, as put on by the Center Theatre Group and Deaf West Theatre. Powers starts by referencing Times theater critic Charles McNulty's mixed review of the show, then sets out on her argument that "Pippin's" musical and fairy-tale elements make it appropriate for kids. But, she writes:

There is one stumbling block. "Pippin" is racy; Bob Fosse, that great satyr, was the guy who made it a Broadway smash in 1972. Some parents might want to just stop reading this now, because I'm about to argue that happy, bespangled, modified bump-and-grind sensuality isn't such a bad thing for kids to witness. And in this production of "Pippin," it's played for laughs and tenderness, not heat.

So whereas McNulty describes the bedroom scene, in which "come-hither hands slide out from under the covers of a sensual bed, but pleasure quickly starts to resemble a nest of vipers," Powers refers to it as "spicy from an adult perspective, but abstract enough that Bebe thought it was a tickle-fest."

Powers goes on to explain more, and it's all sure to spur spirited discussions.

The secret behind Dolly Parton's '9 to 5' mini-concert

Culture Monster reported on Dolly Parton saving the day when a technical glitch caused a delay in a recent preview performance of "9 to 5: The Musical," which opens Saturday at the Ahmanson Theatre. It turns out her impromptu performance wasn't completely, well, impromptu.

"We’d been having some technical problems with our set as we worked through the tech rehearsals," producer Bob Greenblatt said in a recent interview. "We knew there might be some last-minute thing we’d have to stop and correct. On the one hand, a preview audience likes that — it's kind of special. But as the creative team sits there, it’s agonizing for us. We want it to be seamless.

"So I thought, since Dolly was going be in the audience watching the show, it made sense to have her welcome the audience at the top of the show and tell them we might have occasion to stop, and if we do she’ll come up and chat with people during the hold. So she did her little welcome, and people loved it. Then I thought, well, great, we probably won't stop, but then at the end of the first act, we had to bring in the curtain, and she popped right up and stood down by the orchestra pit by the microphone, and she bantered about the show and made some jokes and got the audience singing ‘9 to 5’ with her, and then she sang 'I Will Always Love You.' She was totally game to do it. Which is indicative of her. She’s a total trouper."

Parton is boundlessly enthusiastic about the production, including Megan Hilty's performance as Doralee, the character she herself played in the film. She thinks the "Wicked" star is ideal for the part.

"He took me to see 'Wicked,' they told me they were considering her, and I thought, she’s the perfect one for it," Parton said in a separate interview. "She is from the stage, and she has that voice, and she can do it all. I was really very proud that they picked her. I wasn’t possessive of that little character.... But it’s nothing like the original. You never forget the original; it's like a first love or something. I was the first Doralee. But there might be several Doralees down the road."

For more on Parton and "9 to 5," see this feature in Sunday's Arts & Music section.

— Ann Powers

Dolly Parton and "9 to 5: The Musical" producer Robert Greenblatt at a rehearsal in New York.

Photo by Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images