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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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      in Music

      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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      in Theater

      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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      in Theater

      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

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      in Music

      BAM Artistic Director David Binder to Step Down in July

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      Binder, who was a Broadway producer before joining the nonprofit in 2019, plans to return to theater’s commercial sector.David Binder, the artistic director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, will step down in July, as the venerable institution faces ongoing turnover and the challenge of pandemic-era rebuilding after decades of stability in its leadership team.BAM, which began presenting work in 1861 and describes itself as the nation’s oldest performing arts center, long played a key role in New York’s cultural life, presenting adventurous theater, film, music and dance from artists around the world. But the institution was quieter than some at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, and Binder’s departure will follow the 2021 exit of the institution’s president, Katy Clark, and the 2020 death of its board chairman, Adam Max.Binder joined BAM as artistic director in 2019, making his tenure significantly shorter than those of his two predecessors, Joseph V. Melillo, who spent 35 years at the institution, and Harvey Lichtenstein, who led BAM’s artistic work for 32 years.Similarly, on the institution’s executive side, Clark left BAM after five years in the post (keeping an apartment the institution helped her purchase); she had succeeded Karen Brooks Hopkins, who had spent 36 years at the institution, including 16 as president. BAM’s current president is Gina Duncan, who started just last year, after a year in which that position was vacant.Binder, who had been producing Broadway shows as well as arts festivals before joining the institution, said he was leaving voluntarily and is planning to return to commercial producing after leading the nonprofit’s artistic programming through the upheaval of the pandemic as well as the change in the organization’s executive staff.BAM said Binder would continue to consult for the organization until next January as it searches for a new artistic leader. Binder began working with Melillo when his appointment was announced in early 2018.“I feel like I’ve accomplished what I set out to do there, and I want to get back to making work and producing work,” Binder said in an interview. “I want to keep growing.”Duncan characterized the transition similarly, saying, “David decided to move on, and I appreciate him letting me know now.” She added, “We have a strong team in place, and I have time to do a search and find someone to be my artistic partner.”Binder’s departure comes as many performing arts institutions around the nation are seeing turnover at the top — New York’s theater leaders have tended to hang on longer than most, which is a source of criticism as well as stability, but there is wholesale change unfolding in San Francisco, Chicago and elsewhere.Binder, who is 55, has drawn some buzzy work to BAM, which primarily presents shows developed by other companies.Last year’s pandemic-delayed production of “Cyrano de Bergerac,” which starred James McAvoy and transferred from London, was both a critical and a popular success, becoming the best-selling show in the history of the BAM Harvey Theater. And this month, BAM was the only institution with two shows on The New York Times’s list of things critics are looking forward to this year: the theater critic Jesse Green wrote about anticipating a production of “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” with Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan in the starring roles, and the dance critic Gia Kourlas wrote hopefully about BAM’s U.S. premiere of Pina Bausch’s “Água,” a piece created two decades ago in Brazil.Binder arrived at BAM saying he wanted to bring in new artists — his first Next Wave festival there, in 2019, featured only artists who had not previously performed there. Over the course of his tenure, Binder said he will have presented more than 50 debuts of artistic companies as well as solo performers.Ticket sales during his time have generally exceeded projections; BAM says it is attracting new audiences, and there have been multiple programming highlights: Simon Stone’s “Medea” adaptation, produced by BAM, starring Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale; a new spring music series, curated last year by Hanif Abdurraqib and this year by Solange; and an annual artist residency program.“Through the pandemic and through the leadership changes, I feel that the team and I at BAM have stayed focused on putting fantastic work on our stages, and when we couldn’t do it on our stages, we did it outdoors or site-specific or virtually. And the work we’ve done has been really successful,” he said. “We always tried to mix it up: We had the National Theater of Korea’s opera of ‘Trojan Women,’ and ‘Kiki and Herb Sleigh’; we had the Lithuanian opera ‘Sun & Sea,’ which won the Golden Lion at Venice; and we also hosted the world premiere of Madonna’s ‘Madame X’ tour.”In the commercial arena, Binder is best known as the lead producer of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” which won the Tony Award for best musical revival in 2014. Binder said that he would soon announce that “Hedwig” was “finally coming to the West End in a big way.”Beyond “Hedwig,” Binder is among a handful of commercial producers who have continued to focus on the production of plays, which tend to be riskier than musicals. He says he plans to resume work on his longtime effort to bring the German director Thomas Ostermeier’s production of “An Enemy of the People” to Broadway. (Last fall, Binder brought Ostermeier’s “Hamlet” to BAM; that production was in German, but “An Enemy of the People” would be presented in English.)Binder said he was also working with the innovative British director Jamie Lloyd, who helmed the “Cyrano” revival at BAM, to develop a new play that he was not yet ready to describe.BAM, like other arts organizations, shrank during the height of the pandemic, but is now nearly back to where it was, according to a spokeswoman: Its current annual budget is $56 million, up from $55 million prepandemic; it has 222 full-time staff positions, down from 256; its most recent Next Wave festival had 13 shows, down from 16 prepandemic; and last spring, BAM presented 17 shows, up from 16 during the final prepandemic spring.“I think we’re doing as well as one can, given the circumstances of the world,” Duncan said. “We’ve had some success in audience growth, and our membership numbers are starting to increase again. Everything is heading in the right direction, and now it’s a matter of time.” More

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      in Movies

      Film Forum Director Karen Cooper to Step Down After 50 Years

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      Karen Cooper, who took over the nonprofit cinema in 1972 and transformed it into a $6 million-a-year operation, will step down in July after five decades.When Karen Cooper took over Film Forum in 1972, the theater was a projector and 50 folding chairs in a loft on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, showing what were then known as underground films. The annual budget was $19,000. Cooper projected the films — sometimes herself — on a single 16-millimeter machine no larger than a microwave.“I’d say to someone, ‘I show independent films,’ and they’d say, ‘You mean pornography?’” Cooper, 74, recalled with a laugh in a recent conversation at the nonprofit art house cinema’s offices, now located across the street from the theater in Greenwich Village.But now, Cooper, who has become synonymous with Film Forum — which has grown into a four-screen space with a $6 million-a-year budget and an influence that reaches far beyond New York City — is stepping down from the director role she’s filled for half a century, the organization announced on Monday.“I’ve thought about this for years,” said Cooper, whose last day will be June 30, though she will remain on staff as an adviser. “I wanted to have a smooth transition.”Succeeding her will be Sonya Chung, 49, the theater’s deputy director, who began working at Film Forum in 2003 as the director of development. Chung, who has a master’s degree in fiction writing from the University of Washington, in Seattle, left in 2007 to write and publish two novels (she also taught literature and writing for three years at Columbia University and for nine years at Skidmore College, both in New York). She returned in 2018 as a programming consultant and a member of the advisory committee, and was hired as deputy director in February 2020.The Projectionist Chronicles a New Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.Meet the Newer, Bolder Michelle Williams: Why she made the surprising choice to skip the supporting actress category and run for best actress.Best-Actress Battle Royal: A banner crop of leading ladies like Michelle Yeoh and Cate Blanchett rule the Oscars’ deepest and most dynamic race.‘Glass Onion’ and Rian Johnson: The director explains why he sold the “Knives Out” franchise to Netflix, and how he feels about its theatrical test.Jostling for Best Picture: Weighing voter buzz, box office results and more, here’s an educated guess about the likely nominees for best picture.“Sonya has great taste and a way of articulating it,” Cooper said. “It immediately occurred to me when I met her — unbeknownst to Sonya — that she had the ability to be the director of the theater.”Cooper has been the director of Film Forum since 1972.Emma Howells/The New York TimesCooper was a newly minted 23-year-old Smith College graduate when she took over the theater founded by two film buffs, Peter Feinstein and Sandy Miller, in 1970. Over her 50-year tenure, she built a beloved cultural institution that has introduced the work of now-prominent filmmakers to American audiences, earning the affection of critics and patrons alike.She has led the theater through three relocations — Film Forum moved to its current space on West Houston Street in 1989 — and oversaw a $5 million expansion and renovation in 2018 that upgraded the seating, legroom and sightlines in all screening rooms and added a fourth, which increased the venue’s capacity to nearly 500 seats.Cooper said she was most proud of working to broaden the scope of Film Forum’s programming, introducing audiences to major German filmmakers of the 1970s like Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders. She was also honored to have programmed the New York premieres of ambitious documentaries such as “Asylum,” Peter Robinson’s 1972 look inside the psychiatrist R.D. Laing’s therapeutic community of people with schizophrenia living together in a group home in London; and Spike Lee’s “Four Little Girls” (1997), about the children killed in the 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Ala.It’s the meticulously curated slate of new films — which Cooper, Chung and the artistic director Mike Maggiore map out on a dry erase board in the cinema’s offices as far as six months in advance — that serves as part of the draw for Film Forum’s approximately 200,000 visitors each year, along with a robust lineup of classic films programmed by the repertory artistic director Bruce Goldstein, a concession stand menu of decadent baked goods and a robust lineup of talkbacks with filmmakers.Chung says the biggest challenge facing Film Forum, which is one of the few theaters regularly to feature independent movies in New York, is competition from streaming services. It can be tough, she said, to convince people who’ve become used to watching at home to bundle up, take the subway to the theater and pay $15 for a night out.One solution, she said, is creating a memorable experience that people can’t get anywhere else. They recently hosted Q. and A. events with the filmmaker Lizzie Gottlieb, who directed the documentary “Turn Every Page — The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb,” and the film’s subject, the book editor and her father Robert Gottlieb; as well as with the Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, whose dark tale about the life of a donkey, “EO,” has been shortlisted for an Academy Award. Both events sold out, she said.“Especially post-pandemic, when we have so much streaming overload, younger people are antsy for an IRL experience,” she said, using the acronym for “in real life.”Chung also wants to cultivate a younger and more diverse audience, with a particular focus on people of color from outside the theater’s white, more affluent neighborhood. For the last several years, she has created a young members program and developed partnerships with cultural and community-based organizations like Girls Write Now, a creative writing and mentoring nonprofit for young people from underserved communities in New York City; and ArteEast, a nonprofit that presents work by contemporary artists from the Middle East, North Africa and their diasporas.And now, starting this month, the theater’s internship program — which places three college students each semester in roles in the theater’s repertory program, outreach and administration departments — will be paid.“We decided we should pay them in order to attract a more diverse group of young people to be able to work here,” Chung said.As for Cooper, a longtime resident of the far West Village who walks to work each day, she will remain an active member of the organization’s programming team. She’ll continue to represent Film Forum at the Berlin and Amsterdam film festivals. She intends to maintain her schedule of watching at least 500 films per year. She’ll continue to focus on fund-raising for the nonprofit, which raises approximately $3 million of its operating budget each year.“I never thought I’d stay here 50 years,” she said. “But where would I go? What do they say — the hedgehog knows one thing, the fox knows many things?“I’m a hedgehog,” she said. “I know one thing — how to run a movie theater.” More

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      Daniel Barenboim, Titan of Conducting, to Step Down in Berlin

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      The 80-year-old conductor, citing poor health, said he would resign as general music director of the Berlin State Opera after three decades.Daniel Barenboim, a towering conductor and pianist who as general music director of the Berlin State Opera over the past three decades built an artistic empire without rival and helped define German culture in the aftermath of reunification, will resign his post this month because of health problems, the opera house announced on Friday.Barenboim, 80, who was diagnosed last year with a serious neurological condition, said in a statement that his illness made it impossible for him to carry out his duties.“Unfortunately, my health has deteriorated significantly over the past year,” he said. “I can no longer provide the level of performance that is rightly demanded of a general music director.” His resignation is effective Jan. 31.Barenboim, one of classical music’s biggest stars, had hoped to return to his famously frenzied schedule this year. But the ongoing uncertainty of his condition placed strains on the State Opera — the company was left scrambling to find substitutes, including for a highly anticipated new production of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle last fall — and made it difficult to find a path forward.Matthias Schulz, the State Opera’s director, said that the company was grateful to Barenboim, who turned the Staatskapelle Berlin (the pit orchestra of the State Opera) into one of the world’s most revered ensembles.But, Schulz said, it had become increasingly clear that Barenboim could not be the stable figure the musicians needed, noting that he appeared with the company less than 10 times in 2022, compared with more than 50 times in previous years.“He took responsibility for the fact that he just cannot be sure what he really can fulfill,” Schulz said in an interview.Barenboim was unavailable for comment, a spokeswoman for the opera house said.Born to Jewish parents in Argentina, Barenboim has been a fixture in the German artistic and political scene for decades and has helped define the country’s modern culture since the reunification of East and West Germany. In 1989, three days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he led the Berlin Philharmonic in a concert dedicated to the citizens of East Germany.He has become an influential public figure in Germany and beyond. In 1999, along with the Palestinian intellectual Edward Said. he created the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, providing a forum for young Arab and Israeli musicians to play together.Klaus Lederer, Berlin’s senator for culture, called Barenboim “an artist of the century and one of the most remarkable personalities working in Berlin.” He said in a statement that stepping down was the right choice, even though it was not easy for Barenboim.“His decision was made in a reflective manner; it puts the well-being of the State Opera and the Staatskapelle Berlin in the foreground,” Lederer said. “All of this deserves the greatest respect.”During his tenure in Berlin, Barenboim brought the Staatskapelle to new heights, frequently leading international tours and securing hundreds of millions of euros in government grants to finance his ambitions. He co-founded a music conservatory, the Barenboim-Said Akademie, which opened in 2016. He persuaded officials to build the Pierre Boulez Saal, a Frank Gehry-designed hall housed in the same building as the conservatory, which opened in 2017. And he pushed a costly renovation of the opera house’s main theater, which was finished that same year. The State Opera now has 587 employees and a budget of more than 81.4 million euros ($86.6 million).There have been troubles along the way, but Barenboim maintained his grip on power. In 2019, members of the Staatskapelle accused him of bullying; later that year, though, the opera house, saying that it could not verify the accusations, extended his contract through 2027.He seemed set to reign indefinitely in Berlin, but health woes forced him to cancel performances last spring and summer as he recovered from surgery and grappled with circulatory issues. In October, having disclosed his neurological condition, he said he was taking time off to “focus on my physical well-being as much as possible.” He canceled his participation in the new “Ring,” a herculean undertaking seven years in the making that had been built around him, as well as a planned tour in Asia with the Staatskapelle and a concert in Berlin in November to celebrate his 80th birthday.As he rested at home, he initially resisted resigning his post and told friends and family that he planned to return to the podium. But even as he kept up some appearances, attending rehearsals and teaching classes in Berlin, his ability to lead the opera house full time grew increasingly uncertain.On New Year’s Eve, he appeared to be making steps toward recovery when he conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Berlin while sitting down. But critics noted that he at times seemed unsteady and did not deliver remarks to the audience, as he sometimes does on such occasions.His future activity at the podium is uncertain, but this week, he is scheduled to conduct three concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic and the pianist Martha Argerich, a childhood friend, though in an altered, less physically demanding program. It is unclear whether he will reduce his commitments at the Divan Orchestra, the conservatory or the Pierre Boulez Saal.Barenboim’s resignation will mark the end of an era at the State Opera. Schulz said it was too early to know when the company might name a successor.“There’s no need to rush it,” Schulz said. “It’s more important that this institution makes the right decision for the future, and it’s absolutely possible to take time for that.”But it may prove challenging to find a figure of Barenboim’s stature. The Staatskapelle’s musicians have likened their three-decade relationship with him to a marriage.“There are not so many people at the moment who can run an opera house of this size and reputation coming out of the era of Barenboim,” said Manuel Brug, a cultural critic in Germany. “It’s unique that somebody stayed for 30 years and had the possibility to form something like this. It will be hard to follow.”Barenboim said in his statement on Friday that his time at the opera house had inspired him “musically and personally in every respect.” He hoped to continue conducting at the State Opera, he added. He will retain the honorary title of principal conductor for life, conferred on him by the musicians.“Of course, I will remain closely connected to music,” he said, “as long as I live.” More

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      A Music Historian Takes a Top Job at the New York Public Library

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      Brent Reidy, the new director of Research Libraries, said he hoped to help democratize the 127-year-old library by reaching a younger generation.The New York Public Library on Thursday named Brent Reidy as director of its Research Libraries, putting the 40-year-old music historian at the helm of four vast public research centers whose holdings encompass 17th-century Shakespeare folios and sheet music belonging to Bob Dylan, Dizzy Gillespie and Mozart.Reidy, who has been serving as interim director since William P. Kelly retired in April, will preside over the collection, acquisition and preservation strategies at the Research Libraries, which have a budget of $145 million and welcome four million visitors a year. The position gives him an outsized voice on the direction of national humanities research.An amateur jazz pianist who unwinds by playing John Coltrane, Reidy said he hoped to help democratize the 127-year-old institution by appealing to a new generation of library goers. Among his priorities, he said, is the continued digitization of the Research Libraries’ holdings, which has become even more imperative during the coronavirus pandemic as users gravitated online. Attendance at the Research Libraries was 30 percent below the average attendance before the pandemic and had not yet returned to prepandemic levels, he added, a challenge facing cultural institutions across the country.“I want people to realize that you don’t need to be a tenured professor with a Ph.D. to have access to our collections — you just need a library card,” he said in an interview.Reidy has been an ardent supporter of federal funding for the arts. During the Trump administration, he criticized its attempt to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, citing former President John F. Kennedy’s assertion that artistic freedom was essential to nourish American culture.Reidy will be responsible for four public research centers — the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building; the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; and the Yoseloff Business Center — which collectively have 47 million items in their collections. Among their treasures are Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence; an original Gutenberg Bible from 1455; an unpublished chapter from Malcolm X’s autobiography and an extensive James Baldwin archive.Among the treasures at the library’s research centers is Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence.Robert Kato/New York Public LibraryReidy studied music at Dartmouth College before earning a Ph.D. in Musicology from Indiana University, where he explored national cultural policy under the Kennedy administration, the subject of an upcoming book. Every week, he makes a pilgrimage to the library’s collection of manuscripts and scores belonging to John Cage, the eminent American composer of Minimalist music. “It helps me to de-stress,” he said.A native of Scotia, a village in Schenectady County, N.Y., Reidy said his passion for libraries and books was first ignited as a boy when he would go to the Schenectady County Public Library. With the encouragement of his father, he recalled that he bought about 1,200 LPs from the library, including classical and jazz albums, which he cataloged in the basement of his childhood home. More