CHANGES AT LCC: Late last week, Alejandrina Drew resigned as director of the Latino Cultural Center. Kudos to Nancy Churnin for trying to get to the bottom of her abrupt departure. In a Q&A on dallasnews.com’s East Dallas Blog, Churnin asked Drew why she left, to which Drew responds: “I’m ready to retire and enjoy Dallas.” But, being a good reporter, Churnin asks again at the end of the interview if she is going to leave any conspiracy questions unanswered. Drew’s response? A simple “yes” with a laugh.

RECORD YEARS: Some arts organizations are managing to thrive despite a crummy ecomony. The Dallas Business Journal reports that the Dallas Symphony Orchestra recorded record ticket sales for its 2008-09 season. Much of that can be attributed to the magnetic draw of new musical director Jaap van Zweden, but the DBJ says that other business strategies also had a hand in the success. Meanwhile, the Dallas Museum of Art sends word that it passed the 1 million visitor mark during a fiscal year for the first time in its history. About 664,000 of those visitors can be attributed to this guy.

QUOTABLE: “We try to approach each show as its own living, breathing organism that’s never going to happen again. We leave a lot of the show open for moments to happen. It gets pretty magical.”

— Fort Worth native Bryan Simpson, on his bluegrass band, Cadillac Sky. The band performs tonight at Fort Worth’s McDavid Studio. Click here to read the rest of the DFW.com interview.

ETC.: Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization collaborates with Lyric Stage on The King and I (dallasnews.com) … More videos have emerged from Quick‘s Big Thing (quickdfw.com) … New York’s City Opera, which lured away George Steel from the Dallas Opera, is struggling to survive (nytimes.com) … This Week in the Arts welcomes Jane Offenbach, Director of External Affairs at the Nasher Sculpture Center, for this week’s podcast (thisweekinthearts.com)