Monster Mash: Breaking news and headlines

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-- Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new director, Thomas P. Campbell, introduces himself on YouTube. Via CultureGrrl

-- The National Mall in Washington, D.C., becomes a monument to neglect.

-- Theater groups reappear in Baghdad, but violence remains an issue.

-- A $95-million drop in the endowment at Chicago’s Field Museum leads to salary cuts, layoffs and scaled-back exhibition schedule.

-- Parts of Ian McKellen won’t make the cut in upcoming PBS broadcast of ‘King Lear.’

-- National Portrait Gallery adds Shepard Fairey’s portrait of Obama.

-- Praise for Katie Holmes as her Broadway run in ‘All My Sons’ nears its end.

-- Ford’s Theatre won’t put on permanent display the overcoat Abraham Lincoln was wearing the night he was assassinated in 1865.

-- Potential buyers eye the $150-million collection of Mark Rothko paintings owned by the New York financier linked to Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50-billion Ponzi scheme.

-- Artists, civic leaders and celebrities pay tribute to Robert Graham.

-- Detroit arts groups are put on notice that General Motors Foundation will cut back on multimillion-dollar support in 2009.

-- Lisa Fung