Monster Mash: Breaking news and headlines

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-- 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