Appointments and Executive Changes

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      Nataki Garrett to Step Down at Oregon Shakespeare Festival

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      Garrett began her tenure at the organization in August 2019, and plans to depart at the end of this month.Nataki Garrett, the artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, is stepping down after a tumultuous period that concluded with a financial crisis so severe that the nonprofit theater warned that it was unclear whether it would be able to finish this year’s season.One of the most prominent women of color to lead an American theater, Garrett began her tenure in August 2019. She plans to resign effective May 31; the decision was reported on Friday by American Theater magazine, and then announced by the theater.Garrett has encountered a series of crises during her time at the helm of the organization, which has been one of the nation’s largest and most prestigious nonprofit theaters. Based in the southern Oregon town of Ashland, it is a destination theater, meaning most of its audience travels to get there, and it stages much of its work during the summer; before the pandemic, it had been attracting 400,000 patrons annually.Garrett faced not only the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the theater, like most others, to shutter in 2020, but also the impact of climate change, which has particularly affected the Oregon Shakespeare Festival because it has repeatedly been forced to cancel performances when smoke from wildfires has worsened air quality.She has also received pushback to her programming, which some longtime theater patrons objected to as overly left-leaning, and she hired security personnel after receiving death threats.The organization has experienced considerable turnover during her tenure — some of the leaders she brought in to help run the festival have since left — and in January she took on the title of interim executive artistic director after David Schmitz, who Garrett had hired as executive director, departed amid a leadership shake-up. Last month the company began a $2.5 million fund-raising campaign with the dire tagline: “Save Our Season. Save OSF.”Garrett declined, through a spokeswoman, to be interviewed, but issued a statement saying, in part: “We are at an inflection point in our industry, where outdated business models must evolve in order for our theaters to survive. But these challenges also pose great opportunities — to rebuild in a way that reflects where we are today and where we want to be in the future — with actors, staff, audiences, and artistic leaders who reflect the richness of our country’s diversity. This is what excites me. This is the work I came to do.”The company said in a statement that a board member, the playwright Octavio Solis, “will be stepping in to help oversee and support the artistic leadership team during this transitional phase.”The theater currently has two shows running, a production of “Romeo & Juliet,” directed by Garrett, which is described on the company’s website as exploring “the financial and class divisions of our current time,” as well as a production of “Rent.”The theater’s board chairwoman, Diane Yu, said in an interview that the fund-raising campaign is going well and that she is optimistic that this season’s other shows, including productions of “Twelfth Night” and “The Three Musketeers,” will go forward; the theater has canceled its holiday show, and Yu said what happens next year remains unclear, but that “the board is focused on keeping this theater viable — it’s important for the region and it’s important for the American theater.” More

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      Rattlestick Theater Names Will Davis as Its Next Artistic Director

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      Davis will be the rare transgender theater artist to lead an Off Broadway nonprofit.Rattlestick Theater, a well-regarded Off Broadway company in the West Village, has decided to name Will Davis, a freelance director and choreographer, as its next artistic director.Davis will succeed Daniella Topol, the artistic director since 2016, who has decided to leave theater administration to pursue a career as a nurse. Davis, 40, is transgender, a distinction that he views as noteworthy.“One of the most important things I can do, as a very intentionally, very visible trans person, is offer a mirror to other emerging artists in all disciplines who may not feel like there is a space for them,” he said. “I’m very excited to be part of the group of people who can push this door open and leave it open.”Davis, who is particularly interested in developing new plays, previously served as artistic director of the American Theater Company in Chicago. He programmed experimental work there and box office revenue declined; his tenure ended with the shuttering of the theater company.Jeff Thamkittikasem, the chairman of the Rattlestick board, said the nonprofit had considered Davis’s experience in Chicago and was confident that the situation in New York was different.In Chicago, Thamkittikasem said, Davis “did what he could and produced great art.” In New York, Thamkittikasem said, “We are in a safer and stronger position that will allow him to flourish.”“Will is just an amazing artist with a beautiful eye, and we’re so excited for that aesthetic to be used for developing the culture of Rattlestick,” Thamkittikasem said.Davis said he was proud of the work he did in Chicago, and looking forward to the opportunity to lead in New York. “Rattlestick has always been a home for experimentation, and that has definitely been a part of what my work has been about,” he said. “There’s every possibility for us to make work that is exciting, that pushes the form, and that also feeds and sustains the theater.”Rattlestick, founded in 1994, is a small company with a penchant for adventurous work by emerging writers. This past week, the Obie Awards said it would honor a show the theater staged in 2021, “Ni Mi Madre,” by giving a prize for performance to the show’s creator and star, Arturo Luís Soria.The company has an annual budget of about $1.5 million, with five full-time and five part-time staffers. The company operates out of a theater, rented from a church, with about 93 seats; a $4 million renovation project is scheduled to begin at the end of this summer, and the company plans to stage its next season at locations around the city.Davis will start working alongside Topol in the coming weeks, and will assume the artistic director position full-time on May 1. More

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      Gustavo Dudamel, Superstar Maestro, Meets New York

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      On his first visit to the city since being named the New York Philharmonic’s next music director, he eagerly played the role of celebrity conductor.Gustavo Dudamel, groggy after a late-night flight from Los Angeles but still in good spirits, wandered into a roomful of New York Philharmonic employees, board members and donors on Monday afternoon and beamed.“I feel like Mickey Mouse,” he said as people approached to shake hands and pose for photos.It was Dudamel’s first visit to New York since being named the Philharmonic’s next music and artistic director — a post he will assume in 2026, after the conclusion of his tenure at the Los Angeles Philharmonic — and he was already playing the role of celebrity conductor.During his two-hour appearance at David Geffen Hall, the Philharmonic’s home, Dudamel, 42, offered few specifics about his vision, saying he needed more time to get to know the city and the orchestra. But he put on full display some of the qualities that made him the Philharmonic’s choice: charisma, charm and an ability to bring fresh excitement to classical music.He took part, with childlike giddiness, in a contract-signing ceremony. (“Are these presidential pens?” he asked as he prepared to put his name on the five-year document, which he had already signed electronically earlier this month, when the Philharmonic, in a major coup, poached him from Los Angeles.)He took questions from the Philharmonic’s leaders and the news media, weighing in on the future of classical music; his tenure at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which he has led since 2009; and his sports allegiances. (After initially declining to take sides in Mets versus Yankees, he said he was a fan of the Cardenales de Lara of Barquisimeto, Venezuela, his hometown; but also of the Los Angeles Dodgers, because of their Brooklyn heritage; and finally he declared, with an air of hesitation, “I love the Yankees, too.”)Dudamel with Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic’s president and chief executive. “I always said you would have a ticker-tape parade when you came to New York,” she said.James Estrin/The New York TimesAnd he mingled with the orchestra’s musicians, praising their sound; discussing Mahler’s Symphony No. 9, which they will perform together in May; and thanking them for the gifts they had provided while the orchestra worked to woo him. (He told the cellist Maria Kitsopoulos that her homemade cheesecake was a crucial reason he had decided to move to New York.)Christopher Martin, the orchestra’s principal trumpet, who helped lead the search for a music director, embraced him. Among the orchestra’s players, Dudamel was the favorite from the start.“This is like a dream, seeing you here,” Martin said. “Nobody can believe it.”Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic’s president and chief executive, who hired Dudamel in Los Angeles in 2007, when he was 26, and spent the past year trying to lure him East, led a conversation with Dudamel on the stage of Geffen Hall before he took questions from the media.“I always said you would have a ticker-tape parade when you came to New York,” she said after cheers and whistles erupted in the hall.Dudamel said it was too early to lay out his plans for the orchestra, saying he did not want to impose his vision yet. But he reiterated his interest in creating an education program in New York similar to Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, known as YOLA, which is modeled on El Sistema, the Venezuelan social and artistic movement in which he trained.He quoted the Spanish poet and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno in describing the need to do more to connect with residents, particularly in poor neighborhoods: “The freedom of the people is in their culture.” When a reporter suggested he might call the New York version of his youth orchestra “YONY,” Dudamel smiled, saying, “I love the name.”“This is part of my DNA: to work with young people, to work with communities, to bring the orchestra to the community,” he said. “The New York Philharmonic, as the center of the artistic and musical life of this city, has to play a role, a very important role, in education.”Dudamel will be the first Hispanic leader of the Philharmonic in a city where Latinos make up about 29 percent of the population. When a reporter from Telemundo, the Spanish-language network, asked what Dudamel made of this milestone, he said he had not given it much thought. Then he said he hoped his journey from Barquisimeto to some of the world’s most prestigious stages would be an inspiration.“This can be a model so that girls, boys, young people, can have the certainty that dreams can always be achieved,” he said. “You have to work deeply, have a lot of discipline, and a lot of love for what you do, but it can be achieved.”Throughout the day, a recurring topic was Dudamel’s hair, which has been a subject of fascination since he broke onto the international scene in his early 20s.During a reception, a board member, Angela Chen, asked why he kept it shorter now, compared with his early days. “It feels more fresh this way,” he said, moving his fingers through his famous curls, which have started to gray. “One day it will be very white.”Sort of presidential: Dudamel at the ceremonial signing, with the board co-chairs, Peter May, left, and Oscar Tang. Behind him are Gary Ginstling, the orchestra’s executive director, and Deborah Borda.James Estrin/The New York TimesAt the news conference, Dudamel said he was no longer a “young promise” but that he still felt connected to the energy of his youth.“When I was 24 — 23, 24, 25 — it was crazy; I was a wild animal, not only because of my hair,” he said. “I keep that wild animal Gustavo that is always there — only with less hair.”Dudamel at moments seemed to be still processing his coming move to New York, which he has described as one of the most difficult decisions of his life.When he saw the actor and filmmaker Bradley Cooper, a friend, before the news conference, he said being in New York felt surreal.“I don’t know where to place myself right now,” he told Cooper.On his phone, he showed Cooper a photograph he had seen in Geffen Hall of Leonard Bernstein, a storied predecessor at the Philharmonic with whom he is often compared. (Cooper is directing and starring in a coming film about Bernstein.) In the photo, Bernstein is standing in an elevator after a performance with his eyes closed.“That says everything,” Dudamel said. “That exhausted look. He gave everything for music.”At the end of his visit, Borda led Dudamel on a tour of Geffen Hall, which reopened last fall after a $550 million renovation. As Dudamel looked on, she scrolled through a digital display of the Philharmonic’s past music directors — Toscanini, Mahler, Pierre Boulez, Bernstein — comparing the length of their tenures. They stopped by the new restaurant adjacent to the lobby; on the way out, Dudamel, a whisky fan, marveled at a bottle of 18-year-old Macallan.In a brief interview before leaving, Dudamel said he was exhausted but happy to finally celebrate his appointment with the orchestra, which he has conducted 26 times since making his debut in 2007.“I feel that I am blessed in life to have the opportunity to come here — to have the opportunity to extend the family that I have built in Los Angeles,” he said. “There’s a connection between all of this. It’s a big step. It’s beautiful.” More

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      New York Philharmonic Appoints Gustavo Dudamel as Music Director

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      Dudamel, a charismatic 42-year-old conductor, will take up the Philharmonic’s podium in 2026, in a major coup for the orchestra.LOS ANGELES — Gustavo Dudamel, the charismatic conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, whose fiery baton and bouncy curls have made him one of classical music’s most recognizable figures, will leave his post in 2026 to become the music director of the New York Philharmonic, both orchestras announced on Tuesday.“What I see is an amazing orchestra in New York and a lot of potential for developing something important,” he said in an interview. “It’s like opening a new door and building a new house. It’s a beautiful time.”The appointment of Dudamel, 42, is a major coup for the New York Philharmonic, the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, which was once led by giants including Mahler, Toscanini and Bernstein. Just a decade ago, there were concerns about its future, given the languishing efforts to renovate its lackluster hall and questions about its artistic direction. Now its home, David Geffen Hall, has reopened after a $550 million renovation, and it has secured in Dudamel the rare maestro whose fame transcends classical music, even as he is sought by the world’s leading ensembles.His departure is a significant loss for Los Angeles, where since 2009 Dudamel has helped build a vast cultural empire and helped turn the orchestra into one of the most innovative and financially successful in the United States.He was lured east by Deborah Borda, the New York Philharmonic’s powerful president and chief executive, in an instance of classical music history repeating itself. She signed the 26-year-old Dudamel to the Los Angeles Philharmonic back when she led that ensemble, and helped make him a superstar in its relatively new Walt Disney Concert Hall. Now she hopes to repeat that success in New York.“It’s a wonderful match,” said Borda, who arranged the deal in one of her last big pieces of business before she steps down from her post at the end of June. “I’m joyous for our orchestra. I’m joyous for our city.”The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Dudamel, one of the highest-paid artists in the industry, earned $2.8 million during a recent season in Los Angeles. In New York, he will be given the expanded title of music and artistic director, to match his current role. He will succeed Jaap van Zweden — first as music director designate in the 2025-26 season, then as the orchestra’s 27th music director in the 2026-27 season — with an initial contract for five years.Dudamel, who was born in Venezuela, will be the orchestra’s first Hispanic leader, in a city where Latinos make up about 29 percent of the population. His appointment comes as the Philharmonic has worked to connect with new audiences, especially young people and Black and Latino residents.Classical music audiences typically skew older, but Dudamel is a rare figure who has been able to galvanize traditionalists and newcomers alike. He has made nurturing a younger generation of artists and music fans a priority, building a youth orchestra in Los Angeles modeled on El Sistema — the Venezuelan-based movement, in which he trained, that weds teaching and social work.Dudamel at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, where his contract with the Los Angeles Philharmonic will expire at the end of the 2025-26 season.Alex Welsh for The New York TimesAnd he is unique among modern conductors for his pop-culture celebrity. Dudamel has appeared in a Super Bowl halftime show and voiced Trollzart in the animated film “Trolls World Tour.” He inspired the wunderkind Latin American conductor played by Gael García Bernal on the Amazon series “Mozart in the Jungle” and made a cameo appearance on the show. (“Hear the Hair” was its parody of a classical music marketing campaign.) In addition to making recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, he has conducted on soundtracks of a recent “Star Wars” film and Steven Spielberg’s version of “West Side Story.” In 2019, he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.Dudamel now faces the difficult task of attempting to raise the New York Philharmonic’s standing in American cultural life while helping it navigate a series of challenges, including dwindling ticket revenues, shifting audience behavior since the pandemic and persistent questions about the relevance of classical music and live performance today.Dudamel said that as music and artistic director, he would champion new music and work to develop the orchestra’s sound, now that the musicians had a hall in which they could fully hear each other onstage.“There are no limits, especially in an orchestra with such a history,” he said. “I see an incredible infinite potential of building something unique for the world.”Dudamel, who has been the music director of the Paris Opera since 2021, and of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela since 1999, was a favorite for the podium in New York as soon as it became vacant. In the fall of 2021, van Zweden announced that he would step down at the end of the 2023-24 season after a six-year tenure.When Dudamel appeared at the Philharmonic last spring, for a two-program Schumann symphony cycle, some players, hoping to win him over, showed up to rehearsals bearing gifts and handwritten notes. Inside his dressing room, a group of musicians gave him a bottle of the Brooklyn-made Widow Jane bourbon, telling him the Philharmonic would welcome him if he could find a way to spend more time in New York.“Everything comes alive with him,” said Christopher Martin, the orchestra’s principal trumpet. “Everything is as natural as breathing.”Borda said that it was Dudamel’s long and fruitful relationship with the Philharmonic — he has led 26 concerts with the orchestra since his debut in 2007 — that had made him the choice of the musicians, board members and managers. She recounted meeting him secretly in various European cities over the past year, often flying in and out within 24 hours to avoid suspicion, as she tried to secure a deal. (Seeing him in Los Angeles, she said, “just didn’t feel kosher.”)In October, when Dudamel was in New York to perform at Carnegie Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, she took him on a tour of the renovated hall during a rehearsal, taking a circuitous route to sneak him onto the third tier so that even the orchestra’s musicians would not know. The attempt at secrecy was foiled when they bumped into Lin-Manuel Miranda, who was preparing for a gala performance.The secrecy was broken on Tuesday afternoon when the New York Philharmonic’s musicians were summoned for an announcement shortly after a rehearsal with the guest conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. Some worried that the news would be bad; only members of the orchestra committee knew what the meeting would be about.Judith LeClair, the New York Philharmonic’s principal bassoon, reacted to the news of Dudamel’s hiring on Tuesday.James Estrin/The New York TimesWith the players reunited onstage, Borda and her successor, Gary Ginstling, stepped onto the podium.“Our next music director will be,” Borda said, with a pause, “Gustavo Dudamel.”The musicians erupted into 20 seconds of applause, in a journey from wide-eyed surprise to whistles and cheers, genuine expressions of joy. Judith LeClair, the bassoonist, was the most animated of them, looking dumbfounded before holding a radiant smile through the rest of Borda’s speech.“The Philharmonic has had its ups and downs,” Borda told them. “And it had an amazing time in the ’60s, when we were golden,” she added, referring to Bernstein’s music directorship. “I really feel the promise of that again.”Afterward, members of the orchestra were visibly elated. The oboist Ryan Roberts, who grew up in Los Angeles, called his mother there: “Mom, guess who our new music director is.” She could be heard responding with Dudamel’s name, virtually screaming with excitement.The appointment of Dudamel is the latest chapter in a remarkable career. Born in the Barquisimeto, Venezuela, he grew up in a musical family: His mother was a voice teacher, and his father a trombonist who played in salsa bands. He enrolled in El Sistema as a child and studied violin and composition before pursuing conducting.He sometimes faced questions about his ties to Venezuelan leaders — he conducted at the funeral of President Hugo Chávez — but tried to remain above the political fray. But in 2017, after a young El Sistema-trained viola player was killed during a street protest, Dudamel issued a statement that said “enough is enough” and wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times accusing the government of flouting the Venezuelan constitution. President Nicolás Maduro canceled several overseas tours by Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra as punishment, and Dudamel did not return to Venezuela until a quiet trip late last year.Dudamel has been a champion of new music, collaborating in Los Angeles with composers including John Adams and Gabriela Ortiz. He has also joined forces with pop and jazz stars, such as Billie Eilish and Herbie Hancock. The New York Times critic Zachary Woolfe wrote in 2017 that the Los Angeles Philharmonic was “the most important orchestra in America. Period.”At the New York Philharmonic, Dudamel will lead an organization that is smaller than his Los Angeles empire, and one that has struggled in recent decades with financial troubles. The Los Angeles Philharmonic, with its Frank Gehry-designed Disney Hall as well as the Hollywood Bowl, garnered about $187 million in yearly revenue before the pandemic. The New York Philharmonic earned $86 million.Chad Smith, the chief executive of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, congratulated Dudamel on the move, praised his tenure there for leaving “indelible marks on classical music” and hinted at the orchestra’s next steps.“From our earliest days, the L.A. Phil has been a trailblazer, boldly embracing the new, welcoming the world’s greatest artists to our stages and redefining the role of an orchestra in our community,” he said in a statement. “The search for our next music director will be conducted with this same spirit as we define the future of our organization.”Dudamel broke the news on Tuesday to Los Angeles players after a rehearsal, telling them that he would always be an Angeleno.Dale Breidenthal, a violinist in the orchestra, said Dudamel’s departure was stunning for the ensemble. “We haven’t processed it,” she said on her way out from the rehearsal. Still, she added, New York needed his talents. “We are really excited for him,” she said.Dudamel said he did not expect to build a replica of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in New York. “It’s impossible,” he said. “They are completely different cultures.”Still, he said, he would like to explore the idea of creating a youth education program similar to his efforts in Los Angeles. “It will be very important that we really develop social action through music,” he said. “For artistic institutions in the world, it’s important to embrace and to build. It will be very beautiful.”Borda, who returned to New York in 2017 after 17 years at the helm of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, balanced the New York Philharmonic’s budget and built up its once-depleted endowment. She also helped bring to fruition the long-delayed renovation of Geffen Hall, working with Henry Timms, the president and chief executive of Lincoln Center, to push it through ahead of schedule during the pandemic shutdown.That renovation has helped to revitalize the orchestra; speaking with the players on Tuesday, Borda told them, “It’s really because of you that he’s coming” but added, “And I have to say, it doesn’t hurt to have a nicer hall.”Paid attendance so far this season has hovered around 88 percent, compared with 74 percent before the pandemic, though the revamped hall is somewhat smaller. But the ensemble is still grappling with a host of questions about its identity and vision.Borda offered Dudamel two gifts while wooing him. One, given early in the search, was a program book from a Philharmonic tour of Venezuela in 1958, with a cover designed by the artist Carlos Cruz-Diez.The other, which he received as the deal was being finalized, was a pencil that was used to compose music by an artist who will now be his predecessor: Leonard Bernstein.Dudamel said in the interview that he would always maintain a connection to Los Angeles.“I don’t feel that I’m leaving this place or that it will be goodbye forever,” he said. “All the time I have spent here and all the experience that I have built here, I will bring to New York to build something new. This is life. I don’t feel that it’s an end.”Joshua Barone contributed reporting from New York. More

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      Disney’s Iger Returns to Familiar Stage, but With Different Challenges

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      The company reports quarterly earnings on Wednesday, and Wall Street is expecting it to lay out a new streaming strategy and operating structure.When it comes to reporting quarterly earnings, Robert A. Iger is an old pro. He has done it 58 times as Disney’s chief executive. But the next one, scheduled for Wednesday, will require him to give a performance for the corporate ages.“It has to be an impactful, meaningful, tone-setting, agenda-changing day,” said Michael Nathanson, an analyst at SVB MoffettNathanson who has followed Disney for 18 years.Another veteran Disney analyst, Jessica Reif Ehrlich of BofA Securities, agreed. “I don’t know that we’re going to see answers to everything, but Iger’s overall messaging is going to be critical,” she said.So, no pressure.On Wednesday, Mr. Iger will publicly face Wall Street and Hollywood for the first time since he came out of retirement to retake the reins of a deeply troubled Disney. In late November, the Disney board fired Bob Chapek as chief executive and rehired Mr. Iger, 71, who ran the company from late 2005 to early 2020. He is also contending with Nelson Peltz, the corporate raider turned activist investor. Mr. Peltz, 80, whose Trian Partners has amassed roughly $1 billion in Disney stock and is fighting for a board seat for himself or his son, wants the world’s largest entertainment company to revamp its streaming business, refocus on profit growth, cut costs, reinstate its dividend and do a much better job at succession planning.Most of those things were in motion at Disney before Mr. Peltz started his proxy battle, and analysts expect Mr. Iger to provide updates on at least some fronts on Wednesday.More on the Walt Disney CompanyLabor Tensions: Unions that represent about 32,000 full-time workers at Disney World said that members had voted overwhelmingly to reject the company’s offer for a new five-year contract.Splash Mountain’s Closure: As Disney takes steps to erase the racist back story of the Walt Disney World ride, some are claiming to be selling water from the attraction online.Return to Office: Starting on March 1, the Walt Disney Company will require employees to report to the office four days a week, a relatively strict policy among large companies.Pricing Policies: After complaints by visitors about the costs at its domestic theme parks, Disney revised policies related to ticketing, hotel parking, ride photos and annual passes.How are the content pipelines to Disney’s streaming services (Disney+, Hulu and Disney+) going to be managed? At 6:30 a.m. on his first day back, Mr. Iger ousted Disney’s top streaming executive and ordered a restructuring of a restructuring that Mr. Chapek had put into place.For months, Disney has been talking about cost cutting and layoffs. Where are they? “This can’t drag on,” Ms. Ehrlich said. “It’s not good for company morale.” (Speaking of morale, some Disney employees have been circulating a petition to protest Mr. Iger’s decision last month to require everyone to report to the office four days a week.)Shareholders are increasingly worried about the decline of Disney’s traditional television business, which includes ABC and 15 cable networks, led by ESPN, Disney Channel, FX, Freeform and National Geographic. Disney’s cable portfolio has held up better than those owned by some rival companies (notably NBCUniversal), but Americans have been cutting the cable cord at an alarming pace — total hookups declined by a record 6.2 percent from October to December.“We need an honest and appropriate view of the future of Disney’s television business,” Mr. Nathanson said. “Is there an asset change? Does spending change? Under Chapek, the messaging was never very clear.”Even in decline, traditional television remains Disney’s largest business, delivering $8.5 billion in operating income in the fiscal year that ended in October.Disney and other old-line media companies are facing a simple equation that has proved astoundingly difficult to solve: Profit from traditional television is declining at a faster rate than streaming losses are moderating. In Disney’s case, traditional television earnings are expected to decline by $1.6 billion in 2023, while losses from streaming will abate by only about $900 million, according to Mr. Nathanson.In November, Disney said that losses from its streaming portfolio totaled $1.5 billion from July through September, compared with $630 million a year earlier.But Mr. Chapek, who led the company’s November earnings call, reiterated a promise that Disney+ would turn a profit by next October. Wall Street has been skeptical of that assertion, and Mr. Iger may revise it on Wednesday, along with guidance that Disney+ would have 215 million to 245 million global subscriptions by 2024. Disney+ currently has about 164 million worldwide.Companies always try to put the rosiest spin possible on numbers when talking to analysts, shareholders and the news media on quarterly earnings conference calls. But the upbeat tone struck by Mr. Chapek in the November session did not sit well given the numbers that Disney was reporting. Along with widening losses in streaming, Disney had disappointing profit margins at its theme park business and missed Wall Street’s overall expectations for both revenue and net income, a rarity for the company. (When one senior Disney executive privately told Mr. Chapek before the call that his planned remarks were too positive, he called her Eeyore, the gloomy donkey from “Winnie the Pooh.”)Mr. Iger will undoubtedly highlight some of Disney’s recent achievements. “Avatar: The Way of Water,” released by Walt Disney Studios, has generated $2.2 billion worldwide since it arrived in theaters on Dec. 16. Disney received more Oscar nominations last month (23) than any other company. Over the end-of-year holidays, Disney’s theme parks were gridlocked, easing fears about consumer belt-tightening.“Despite the macro headwinds, the parks still feel incredibly strong,” Ms. Ehrlich said.But Mr. Iger will also need to contend with a lackluster set of overall numbers, at least if analysts’ forecasts are correct. Analysts are expecting per-share earnings of about 79 cents from Disney, down from $1.06 for the same period a year ago, and revenue of $23.4 billion, up from $21.8 billion a year ago.Analysts polled by FactSet estimate that Disney+ will have 163 million subscribers, a slight erosion from the previous quarter.Mr. Iger will probably not directly address Mr. Peltz’s proxy battle, unless an analyst prods him about it. Disney has already made its position clear, saying in a Jan. 17 securities filing that Mr. Peltz had “no strategy, no operating initiatives, no new ideas and no plan.” In a fresh eruption late last week, Trian said there was an “urgent need” for Disney shareholders to drop Michael B.G. Froman from the company’s board and give the seat to Mr. Peltz or his son. In response, Disney aggressively defended Mr. Froman, a senior Mastercard executive and former U.S. trade representative who has been a Disney director since 2018.Some prominent analysts have taken Disney’s side.“He hasn’t made a good enough case for why he needs a seat on the board,” Mr. Nathanson said, referring to Mr. Peltz.Richard Greenfield, a founder of the LightShed Partners research firm, was one of Mr. Iger’s most ardent critics during his previous tenure at Disney — so much so that Mr. Iger blocked him on Twitter and refused to take questions from him on earnings calls. Mr. Greenfield, however, recently published an aggressive defense of Disney titled “Disney Would Be Wise to Keep Peltz Off the Jedi Council.”Perhaps Mr. Iger will take a question from Mr. Greenfield on Wednesday. More

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      Yannick Nézet-Séguin Extends His Contract With the Philadelphia Orchestra

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      The four-year extension will keep him at the podium through at least the end of the 2029-30 season.The conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who has led the Philadelphia Orchestra to accolades and worked to broaden its repertory, including by promoting the music of overlooked composers, has renewed his contract, the orchestra announced on Sunday.The four-year extension will keep Nézet-Séguin, 47, at the podium through at least the end of the 2029-30 season. As part of the deal, he has been given an expanded title, serving as both music and artistic director of the 123-year-old ensemble.In an interview, Nézet-Séguin likened his relationship with the orchestra to a “great and healthy marriage.”“Making music when we know each other, when we love each other, makes a world of difference,” he said. “To see this relationship flourish and expand — I’m very grateful for it.”Nézet-Séguin, who began his tenure as the orchestra’s eighth music director in 2012, is one of classical music’s busiest conductors. In addition to his post in Philadelphia, he is music director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York and leads the Orchestre Métropolitain of Montreal, where he was born.Matías Tarnopolsky, the president and chief executive of the orchestra and the Kimmel Center, said Nézet-Séguin was a transformative figure in the orchestra’s history.“The music they are making together is transcendental — this great orchestra, this extraordinary conductor,” he said. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts in this relationship.”Nézet-Séguin has helped guide the orchestra’s recovery from the pandemic, which has brought steep financial losses and resulted in a decline in the number of people attending concerts. (The orchestra lost about $26 million in ticket sales and performance fees after canceling more than 200 concerts at the beginning of the pandemic.)The orchestra is experimenting with ways of attracting new concertgoers, including by lowering ticket prices and holding performances at different times of the day. Attendance has improved over the past few months, reaching an average of 60 percent capacity so far this season, compared with 66 percent before the pandemic.As classical music grapples with a history of racial and gender discrimination, Nézet-Séguin has emerged as a champion of overlooked composers. This week, for example, the Philadelphia Orchestra performed the Negro Folk Symphony by William L. Dawson, a Black composer. The orchestra gave the world premiere of the piece in 1934 but, before this week, had only performed it in full on one other occasion.Nézet-Séguin said that in the coming years he planned to continue to diversify the orchestra’s repertory, which he hopes will help nurture new classical music fans.“We must listen more to people from communities we want to embrace,” he said. “We must not always impose. We should ask, ‘How can we welcome you?’”Nézet-Séguin also hopes to raise the orchestra’s profile by leading more tours, including in China and other parts of Asia, as well as in the United States. Last fall, the orchestra canceled a tour of China planned for May, worried that the country’s then-strict coronavirus protocols would create logistical challenges. The tour was meant to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the orchestra’s visit to the country in 1973, when it became the first American ensemble to perform in Communist-led China.Under Nézet-Séguin, the orchestra has won accolades, including its first-ever Grammy last year, for a recording of two symphonies by Florence Price, the first Black woman to have her music played by a major American orchestra.Nézet-Séguin will be feted in Philadelphia in the coming days with what the orchestra is calling “Philly Loves Yannick Week.” As part of the festivities, the ensemble has produced a bobblehead modeled on him, complete with his trademark bleached-blond hair and red-soled Christian Louboutin shoes.He said he could envision many more years in Philadelphia, noting the orchestra’s history of music directors with lengthy tenures, so long as the musicians wanted him and he could keep them stimulated.“There’s nothing I can do as a conductor if I don’t have my orchestra with me,” he said. “At the end of the day, I’m just the person waving and thinking. In the end they do the music.” More

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      The Shed Changes Leadership Structure

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      In the face of financial challenges, the arts institution is making adjustments: Alex Poots, its founding artistic director and chief executive, will now just focus on being artistic director.Having come into the world just a year before the coronavirus pandemic started, the Shed — an architecturally ambitious $475 million arts center in Hudson Yards — has weathered a bumpy beginning. In addition to sold-out performances (such as the recent play about Robert Moses starring Ralph Fiennes), the institution has had its share of financial struggles (28 of its 107 full-time workers were laid off in July 2020).Now, the Shed is making perhaps its biggest adjustment yet, announcing that Alex Poots, the founding artistic director and chief executive, will no longer be chief executive — but will continue to focus on the creative side of the institution as its artistic director.The change is effective immediately; Maryann Jordan, the Shed’s current president and chief operating officer, will handle day-to-day management in the interim.“It has become more and more clear to me that, to really take us on to the next chapter, I need to dedicate my entire time to the artistic direction of this organization,” Poots said in a telephone interview, adding that the change was his decision. “I see it as a positive step forward.”“I’m not going to say it’s not been a struggle, but we’ve gotten through it every time we’ve been confronted with challenges,” he added. “We’re very robust to have built the first arts center since Lincoln Center on an entirely new model with a completely new team.”More on the Coronavirus PandemicNew Subvariant: A new Omicron subvariant, known as XBB.1.5, is surging in the northeastern United States. Scientists say it remains rare in much of the world, but they expect it to spread quickly and globally.Travel: The European Union advised its 27 member nations to require negative Covid-19 tests for travelers boarding flights from China to the region, amid a surge in coronavirus cases in the country.Misinformation: As Covid cases and deaths rise in parts of the United States, misleading claims continue to spread, exasperating overburdened doctors and evading content moderators.Free at-Home Tests: With cases on the rise, the Biden administration restarted a program that has provided hundreds of millions of tests through the Postal Service.Jonathan M. Tisch, who in April succeeded the Shed’s founding chairman, Daniel L. Doctoroff, and who — with his wife, Lizzie — in 2019 donated $27.5 million toward the building’s construction, insisted this was not a demotion for Poots. “Alex has done a remarkable job over the past eight years of establishing the Shed as one of New York City’s — and probably the country’s — premiere cultural institutions,” Tisch said in an interview. “But it’s a tough job to be artistic director and C.E.O. at the same time. In conversations, Alex expressed interest in stepping back from being top executive to allowing his focus to center on ensuring our success.”Cultural institutions across the country have struggled mightily throughout the pandemic, primarily because of the lost revenue from closures and canceled performances. The Shed had the added hurdle of being just a year old, without the opportunity to build a loyal audience or donor base. In the wake of the pandemic, the Shed reduced its annual operating budget to $26.5 million from $46 million in 2020; its full-time staff is now 88.Last month, Poots sent an email to staff members saying that “in an uncertain economic environment,” the Shed would consolidate some of its artistic operations.“To align our program developments and resources, we are exploring ways of merging program areas into an interdisciplinary department that works within and between art forms in unified ways,” Poots said in the email, obtained by The New York Times. “After much deliberation, this new model includes the discontinuation of the visual arts Chief Curator position.”That curator position was held by Andria Hickey, who last February left Pace Gallery to join the Shed. She will be staying on, as curator at large.Having one chief curator “makes less sense now,” Poots said in the interview, “because we need expertise across a very wide range of disciplines.”The Shed has also had to adjust to the stepping back of Doctoroff, because of illness. Doctoroff led its successful fund-raising efforts and shepherded the institution into existence after he served as a deputy mayor under Michael R. Bloomberg, who himself supported the Shed.Other successes include the Fiennes play written by David Hare, “Straight Line Crazy”; the comedian Cecily Strong’s New York stage debut; and an ambitious three-part exhibition by the Argentine artist Tomás Saraceno. In addition, the Shed was among the first arts institutions to reopen after New York’s pandemic shutdown. And the institution managed to raise the remainder of its building costs — $135 million — during the coronavirus crisis, Doctoroff said in an interview.“We’re still learning,” Doctoroff said. “We’ve started to understand the model. I’m encouraged, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t normal start-up bumps and bruises. I think we will be incredibly successful over time.” More

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      Barry Grove to Depart Manhattan Theater Club After 48 Years

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      During his tenure, the nonprofit supported works that have gone on to earn seven Pulitzer Prizes and nearly 30 Tony Awards.Barry Grove was 23 years old when, in 1975, he started work as the managing director at Manhattan Theater Club, then a fledging nonprofit producing Off Off Broadway shows in space rented from a Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association on the Upper East Side.Over nearly half a century, as the organization, the art form and the industry have expanded and transformed, he has become a familiar figure both on Broadway, where M.T.C., which primarily presents new plays, now operates the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, and Off Broadway, where the company presents work at New York City Center in Midtown. The company’s annual budget has grown from $172,000 to about $27 million.Grove’s longtime partnership with the company’s artistic director, Lynne Meadow, who is celebrating her 50th anniversary at the nonprofit, has supported work that has won seven Pulitzer Prizes (for “Cost of Living,” “Crimes of the Heart,” “Doubt,” “The Piano Lesson,” “Proof,” “Rabbit Hole” and “Ruined”) and 28 Tony Awards. At the same time, he has taught (most recently at Columbia and Yale) and served on the industry’s most powerful boards (including for the Tony Awards, the Broadway League and the League of Resident Theaters).Now M.T.C.’s executive producer, Grove, 71, is ready to leave. He announced Wednesday that his last day will be June 30. His final shows include two plays on Broadway, “The Collaboration,” which opened in December and runs through Feb. 5, and “Summer, 1976,” which begins performances April 4, as well as two Off Broadway plays, “The Best We Could” and “King James.”“We’ve had an incredible run and an incredible relationship, and have done amazing things,” Meadow said. “I will miss him terribly, and we’re going to continue to try to be great.”As Grove prepares to depart the company, he reflected on his tenure, and the state of the industry. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Why are you leaving?Very recently it became clear to me that it was time for me to do this and have some time while I’m still healthy with my wife and extended family, to maybe go back to teaching and some consulting work. I started in the professional theater when I was 19. I don’t know that I’m ready to get into a rocking chair, but I do want to be able to pursue small projects, a lifelong commitment to teaching, service to the community, that kind of stuff.Why did you stay for so long?If I had just landed in a finished theater — big and mature — I might well have gotten tired or burned out much earlier. But from the beginning, I was able to adopt a strategy of “learn it, do it, teach it, monitor it, and then get out of the way.” And so we were able to grow a staff and to grow the institution. With each new idea Lynne had, or new opportunity that the work demanded, there was a new challenge, and it kept me interested, it kept me motivated, and it kept me moved by the power of the work.What is your favorite show that you’ve worked on?This is a question over the years I’ve been asked a lot, and my answer is always the same: The next one.What is the future of the Manhattan Theater Club?I think it’s yet to be charted, but I hope that it will continue to be involved in important new work, and that it can remain a viable not-for-profit that will allow a next generation to do the work they feel needs to be and wants to be done. I’m not looking to tower over the future. I full well expect they’ll take the place beyond where we have and to places I haven’t even maybe dreamed of.What is the state of the play on Broadway?It’s now clear that we’re still not out of the woods on the pandemic aftereffects. The numbers are just down. In addition, there are for the first time in a while, a number of play revivals on Broadway, with very expensive capitalizations and stars, and between them they are seating a lot of people, but many of them are going to close at a loss. And in the meantime it makes for trying to keep the audience at the same size here hard, because the commercial world is spending a lot of money advertising. And beyond that, people are still slow to come back a lot — they’re buying single tickets to shows they want to see, but they’re not buying large subscription packages. We’re not out of the hole.How are nonprofit theaters doing?Everywhere, sales have been disrupted. I’d make a plea to the general public that cares about the theater: If ever there was a time to support your local theater, whichever one that is, now is the time to do that.Will you keep seeing theater?Of course. I need to see the final act of “Julius Caesar” to know how it comes out, because when my mom started taking me to theater in Stratford, Connecticut, she had an appendicitis attack in the fourth act so I never got to see how it ended. More