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    Lincoln Center Chooses Hearst Chief as Next Board Chair

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    Steven R. Swartz, president and chief executive of Hearst, will replace Katherine G. Farley, the longtime chair, in June.Lincoln Center faces a series of challenges in the coming years: recovering from the pandemic, reaching new audiences and making its campus more welcoming to the public.Now it will have a new board chair to help tackle those priorities: Steven R. Swartz, president and chief executive of Hearst, whom the center announced on Thursday would replace Katherine G. Farley, the longtime chair, in June.Swartz, who has been a Lincoln Center board member since 2012, said in an interview that he would continue the vision of Farley and Henry Timms, the center’s president and chief executive, who have worked to broaden its appeal beyond classical music and ballet into genres like hip-hop, poetry and songwriting.“We’ve really done an amazing job of making our campus and our programming open and accessible and inclusive,” he said. “We just want to keep it going.”Farley, who took over as board chair in 2010, said in an interview that she thought it was time for a change after the $550 million renovation of David Geffen Hall, the home of the New York Philharmonic, which reopened last fall, a year and a half ahead of schedule.Farley was a major force behind the renovation, a project that had languished for years, working with the leadership of the New York Philharmonic, including its president and chief executive, Deborah Borda, and the chairmen of the Philharmonic’s board, Peter W. May and Oscar L. Tang. She secured a gift of $100 million from Geffen, the entertainment mogul, in 2015 to help kick-start the renovation. (Lincoln Center, the nation’s largest performing arts complex, owns the hall and is the Philharmonic’s landlord.)“The hall is finished, all the money’s been raised, our budget is balanced,” Farley said. “It just seemed like this was the right time to pass the baton.”During her tenure, she worked to bring more racial and gender diversity to Lincoln Center’s executive ranks, helping create a fellowship to build a pipeline of board members for the entire campus.She also faced criticism during her tenure, including during a turbulent time in the mid-2010s when the center endured leadership churn and financial woes.Swartz praised Farley, describing her tenure as an “extraordinary chairmanship.” She will remain on the board’s executive committee.He said that under his leadership the center would try to reach the broadest possible audience.“Now as the city looks to recover from the pandemic,” he said, “I think the arts give us hope and give us inspiration, and they give people across the city, from all walks of life, just much-needed entertainment.” 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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      in Theater

      Another Miranda at the Public Theater: Luis A. Miranda Jr., New Board Chair

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      Luis A. Miranda Jr., a political consultant and activist whose son, Lin-Manuel Miranda, composed one of the Public’s biggest hits, “Hamilton,” was named chair of the theater’s board.Long before he joined the board of the Public Theater, and before his son, Lin-Manuel Miranda, composed one of the biggest hits in the theater’s history, “Hamilton,” Luis A. Miranda Jr. recalled the first show he ever saw there: Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf.”“My first experience with the Public Theater, in 1976, was of a production that could not be more different than everything that was on Broadway,” Luis Miranda, 68, said, recalling “For Colored Girls” and its intimate stories of Black female agency told through spoken word and dance.Now Miranda, a political consultant and activist who has worked in city government and the nonprofit sector, will be taking on a new role at the institution: The theater announced Tuesday that he would be its next board chair.Miranda said that his priorities included the renovation of the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, the home of the theater’s Free Shakespeare in the Park program, and support for the theater’s diversity and inclusion initiatives.While many theaters have begun to reckon with being “too white” in recent years, Miranda said, Public Theater had an early start on bridging the equity gap.“We’re not starting from scratch because the theater has a history of cultural transformation and putting onstage diverse actors, diverse writers,” said Miranda, who has been on the board since 2015. But he added that there was more to do and that he would work on initiatives that include antiracism training for board members and the hiring of a senior director of antiracism and equity.“Hamilton” started out at the Public Theater, before transferring to Broadway. “We never thought that Hamilton would be what it has become,” Miranda said.Miranda chairs the Latino Victory Fund, the Broadway League’s Viva Broadway initiative and the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance. At the Public he succeeds Arielle Tepper, who served as chair for nearly a decade. “I couldn’t be happier that he is taking over,” Tepper said.Oskar Eustis, the theater’s artistic director, praised Miranda in a statement for his commitment to the idea that “culture belongs to everyone.” More

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      in Theater

      Chicago’s Victory Gardens Is Again Mired in Turmoil

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      The esteemed Chicago theater’s artistic director is out, and artists and his supporters are upset with the company’s board of directors.CHICAGO — Victory Gardens Theater, a vibrant fixture here since 1974, had long prided itself on being a champion of diversity while also bringing new works to its audiences. In 2001, it received the Tony Award for outstanding regional theater for its role in “contributing to the growth of theater nationally.” The theater was jolted in the wake of the social-justice movement of 2020, when its board triggered protests and the mass resignation of its affiliated playwrights by appointing its white executive director to become the artistic director as well — a decision that was not communicated with the theater’s artists. After an upheaval, the executive director resigned, along with the board president, and by the spring of 2021, Black leaders had been appointed to three key positions: Ken-Matt Martin was named artistic director, Roxanna Conner acting managing director and Charles E. Harris II president of the board.But now, a little more than two years after that rebellion, Victory Gardens Theater is in turmoil again. Last month the Victory Gardens board told the staff that Martin had been placed “on leave” — he said in a recent interview that he had been dismissed — and Conner said she would depart at the end of July.That has led to a new uproar. The playwright Erika Dickerson-Despenza denounced what she described as the board’s “white supremacist capitalist patriarchal values” in a statement announcing that she had rescinded the rights to her play “Cullud Wattah,” about the Flint, Mich., water crisis, with nine days left in its run. Actors’ Equity intervened to ensure that the performers were paid for the canceled shows, saying in a statement: “It is deeply disheartening to see an organization that has very publicly wrestled with institutional racism in recent memory again be perceived as unable to support workers of color without whom Victory Gardens Theater could neither exist nor thrive.”Three resident theater companies that present work at Victory Gardens have pledged not to work there until the artists’ complaints are addressed. And the company’s resident directors and playwrights — a new ensemble brought in by Martin — have signed a petition announcing their departures from the organization and calling for “the immediate resignation of the Victory Gardens’ board of directors.”The theater’s remaining staff members took control of the theater’s Facebook and Twitter accounts in early July to post a statement: “We, the nine remaining full-time staffers of Victory Gardens, in solidarity with the resident artists, demand the immediate resignation of the board of directors and the reinstatement of Ken-Matt Martin as artistic director.”Harris, the board president, has declined to comment on any of these matters, referring to Martin’s situation as a personnel issue and releasing a statement on the board’s behalf.Ireon Roach, left, and Renée Lockett in the Victory Gardens Theater production of “Cullud Wattah,” which the playwright pulled from the theater.Liz Lauren“The Victory Gardens Theater board is grappling with the theater’s future, as are many other nonprofit theaters,” said the statement, which expressed regret over the resignation of the playwrights and the withdrawal of “Cullud Wattah,” and pledged that the perspectives of staff members had been heard. “We are committed to acting in the theater’s best interests in all matters.”During a recent video interview, Martin said he did not know why he was dismissed. “The board informed me that I was being released from my artistic director contract at Victory Gardens with cause,” he said, reading from a statement he later posted on his personal website. “I asked twice in the meeting what was the cause and was not given any.”He said he was asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement and give up all claims on future lawsuits. “I am declining the offer,” he said. “It is vitally important that I be able to speak truthfully about the needs of the artists and staff.”His removal was seen by his supporters as a betrayal, following what some saw as a lack of support for Martin and Conner. Victory Gardens has been without an executive director, the top job at the theater, since 2020, and though a search committee eventually interviewed candidates, the post remains vacant.“As somebody who has worked in the nonprofit sector for a long time and had a pretty close-up view of the relationships between boards and leadership and staffing structures, it seemed like operationally there were a lot of holes, and Ken-Matt and Roxanna were being relied on to plug all of them,” said Marisa Carr, whom Martin invited to join the playwrights’ ensemble in June 2021 and who resigned a year later. She cited creating the operating budget (a task an executive director would likely be involved in) and even cleaning the theater as duties that fell on their shoulders.Martin took the reins at Victory Gardens during the pandemic, and at a time when newly formed groups like “We See You, White American Theater,” a national coalition of theater artists, were demanding that antiracism and significant hiring of people of color become the industry standard. Martin supported such efforts, pushing for a pay equity plan at Victory Gardens.Just over a year later he has now joined a group of Black artistic leaders recently separated from the institutions they had been hired to lead. Elsewhere in Chicago, the House Theater closed its doors this summer after its new artistic director, Lanise Antoine Shelley, had presented just two shows; Jon Carr, the Second City executive producer, left his position in February after 14 months; and Regina Victor, artistic director of Sideshow Theater, resigned on July 20.Circumstances differ from case to case, and it remains unclear why Martin was let go, but some see a pattern, including Lili-Anne Brown, who directed the Victory Gardens production of “Cullud Wattah.” “Put a woman or person of color in charge but don’t support them at all and thereby push them off the glass cliff,” she said.Finances appear to be a flash point in this conflict, especially a proposed real estate deal. Victory Gardens occupies the historic Biograph Theater in Lincoln Park and also owns office space in an adjacent building. The board has been considering selling its office space so it can buy a former restaurant space located within the Biograph building with the aim of consolidating the theater’s real estate and possibly saving money over the long term. But Martin and others objected, saying that the purchase wasn’t supported by a broader plan or capital campaign, and that the money would be better used to repair the theater’s long-faulty heating and air conditioning system, among other needs.These disputes have alarmed theater professionals beyond the immediate Victory Gardens family. David Cromer, a theater director and Chicago native who is now based in New York, said he sent a concerned email to the board expressing his confusion and urging its members to resign “if you no longer wish to facilitate the creation of theater.”“Does a board owe legally an explanation for any of this?” Cromer said in a phone interview. “Probably not. But they have the stewardship of one of the foundational documents of Chicago theater, so what the hell? What answers have they presented?”The playwright Isaac Gomez, who posted the “We Resign” letter from the Victory Gardens playwrights’ ensemble and resident directors on his Medium page, said he has recruited 11 potential new board members while sending emails urging those currently serving to step down. One current member responded that the board intends to “stay the course,” Gomez said. Board members approached for this article referred all questions to Harris and the board’s statement.The board has maintained it is making decisions for the good of the theater, explaining in the statement that its members have “more than 100 years of experience with Victory Gardens, and we know well the delicate balance of managing the artistic well-being of the theater with our fiduciary responsibility.” It added: “We believe wholeheartedly in the powerful work of Victory Gardens Theater and are committed to finding a way to enable it to continue.”Could Victory Gardens survive if the board stays and Martin does not? “No,” Brown said. “I believe almost 2,000 people have signed that petition saying they won’t work there unless the board steps down and Ken-Matt is reinstated. So continue with what? Where are they even going to get the plays?”Dennis Zacek, who served as Victory Gardens’ first artistic director for 34 years, said he also is unsure about the theater’s future. “As far as I can tell, either the theater is going to be dissolved, or they’re going to have someone come to the negotiation table and find a way for these people to communicate with each other,” he said, endorsing the idea of Harris stepping down as board chairman. “It may not be enough, but come on, there must be some good people on that board. He may be a good person, too, but it’s on his watch.”David Kolen, an Actors’ Equity senior business representative who oversees contracts with Chicago theaters, said the union would support its members working in a reopened Victory Gardens Theater as long as it is “a safe and functional workplace.”As for Martin, he said that although he appreciates the unsolicited calls for him to be reinstated, he has decided “that I need to take a break from nonprofit theater administration and would not immediately return if asked.”The issue, he stressed, isn’t about him but the treatment of those who do creative work. “I am not a martyr,” Martin said. “I am not a victim. I am an artist and deserve to treated with respect.” More

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      in Music

      Juilliard’s President Is Challenged but Retains Support of Board

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      The school’s chairman and biggest benefactor, Bruce Kovner, had wanted its president, Damian Woetzel, to leave after a negative evaluation. He marshaled support and stayed.When the charismatic former New York City Ballet star Damian Woetzel was named president of the prestigious Juilliard School in 2017, the school’s powerful chairman, Bruce Kovner, praised his “unusual mix” of intellectual and artistic qualities.But earlier this year Kovner told Woetzel that an internal evaluation had found a lack of confidence in his leadership and asked him to resign by the end of June, a year before the end of his contract, according to a letter Woetzel sent to the school’s trustees that was obtained by The New York Times.Woetzel fought back and succeeded in rallying support behind him, getting testimonials from several eminent artists including the trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis, who directs Juilliard’s jazz program, and the pianist Emanuel Ax, a leading member of the faculty. And he wrote in his letter to trustees that the performance review “was extraordinary and highly inconsistent with best practice in nonprofit governance — it was conceived, initiated and managed by our board chairman.”Things came to a head at a board meeting last month. The trustees were informed of the evaluation and Kovner’s recommendation that he leave, but declined to take steps to ease Woetzel out. Kovner, long the school’s biggest benefactor, is planning to step down this June after 22 years as its chairman, a move that one associate said had long been planned.Kovner declined to comment, and Juilliard provided a statement from the board to The New York Times in which it said that “at its most recent meeting, the board strongly reaffirmed its support for President Damian Woetzel” and the 10-year strategic plan that the school created in 2019.The statement said that the board was “unwavering in its focus on the best interests of the students of the Juilliard School, and remains committed to supporting the school’s exceptional faculty, staff and management.”Some saw the conflict as a rare power struggle between two prominent figures in the cultural world, a showdown between old guard and new blood.Given Kovner’s immense influence as Juilliard’s biggest patron — and as an important figure at Lincoln Center, Juilliard’s home, where he serves on the board and has given large sums — some were surprised to see Woetzel prevail. One trustee likened it to a David and Goliath story.Woetzel, 54 — who earned a master’s degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard while still dancing — has built a national reputation, having directed the Aspen Institute Arts Program and the Vail International Dance Festival and served on President Barack Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.Kovner, 75, whose net worth Forbes estimates at $6.2 billion, has been something of a permanent government at Juilliard, having served as chairman for an unusually long time. With his wife, Suzie, Kovner’s gifts have included $25 million toward a new wing and scholarships in 2005; a trove of precious music manuscripts in 2006; $20 million for the early music program in 2012; and $60 million for a new scholarship program in 2013.At Lincoln Center, Kovner was one of the biggest donors to the redevelopment of the performing arts complex, serves on the board of the Metropolitan Opera and was formerly a trustee of the New York Philharmonic.The standoff posed a challenge for the board and the school, given that Kovner’s ongoing support of Juilliard remains crucial.Bruce Kovner, the chairman of Juilliard, and his wife, Suzie, are the school’s biggest benefactors. He sought to ease Woetzel out after a negative evaluation. Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images For Lincoln CenterWoetzel’s evaluation was sent to 49 members of the faculty and staff — including every department head and 18 direct reports — 43 of whom responded to it anonymously. There are about 700 full-time and part-time members of Juilliard’s faculty and staff.The review was designed and conducted by Kovner and J. Christopher Kojima, a vice chairman, Woetzel’s letter to the board said. His letter said that it was “not conducted at an arm’s length distance by an independent party as is best practice for nonprofit institutions of our scale.”The responses included 143 comments, more than three-quarters of which were negative, according to someone privy to a summary of the report who was granted anonymity to describe this sensitive personnel matter.The feedback amounted to several key criticisms, according to the summary, which was described to The Times: that Woetzel focused on performance instead of education; had weak administrative leadership; failed to consult faculty members on key decisions; and created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.A question about confidence in Juilliard’s future met with a negative response from more than half of those who responded, according to the person familiar with the summary.On Jan. 27, Woetzel was asked to leave, according to his letter to the board.“Bruce Kovner communicated — on behalf of the Executive Committee — that my service as president would be terminated prior to the end of my contract, and that the decision was ‘irrevocable,’” Woetzel wrote in the letter to trustees.“Having communicated to me this intent to terminate,” the letter said, “Bruce then emailed me an offer of a severance package that would include a jointly crafted statement that would create a false narrative that I was resigning as of June 30th.”The letter gave Woetzel 96 hours to respond. He decided not to resign.On Feb. 4, Kovner sent the results of the evaluation to the full board, saying the findings were concerning and would be discussed at the regularly scheduled board meeting four days later.Woetzel marshaled support from a number of prominent artists and colleagues, who sent letters to the board in advance of the meeting.“Damian has a record of excellence in his leadership of the school, especially during two pandemic years and these deeply troubling social, political and financial times that have changed the social landscape of America,” Marsalis wrote in his letter, obtained by The Times. “He has been engaged with students, faculty and board in attempting to create a modern institution that is nimble and able to address the very real concerns of students and alumni around the world.”“I feel how we are going about this brings our ethics into question,” Marsalis continued. “This attempt to remove him seems to be poorly thought out, poorly executed, and it will place a stain on our institution that even our love of resources and fragile spirit will not easily remove.”Juilliard has had successes, but also problems, since Woetzel took charge.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThe trombone player Weston Sprott, who is the dean of Juilliard’s Preparatory Division, warned in an email to Ax, an influential faculty member, that “a decision to terminate Damian will be incredibly harmful to the institution.”“In the midst of managing the bumps and bruises that could be expected in navigating the national reckoning regarding racial injustice,” Sprott continued, “Damian has put together perhaps the most diverse, inclusive and successful leadership team in our industry — one that is respected by students and faculty and is the envy of its competitors.”Kovner and the executive committee expect Woetzel to address the problems raised in the evaluation with outside coaches and under the guidance of the trustee Reginald Van Lee, a former management consultant, according to the person familiar with the summary. But one trustee said no such course of action has been decided by the full board.Woetzel started out as an unconventional choice for Juilliard, having never worked in academic administration, let alone at one of the world’s leading performing arts schools, which at the time of his appointment had a $110 million annual budget, a $1 billion endowment, and more than 800 students.At Juilliard, Woetzel has made several noteworthy advances, securing a $50 million gift to expand the school’s weekend training program aimed largely at Black and Latino schoolchildren; filling several key positions; and guiding the school through the challenging two years of the pandemic.But he has also had bumps along the way. After a drama workshop at the school involving the re-enactment of a slave auction prompted an outcry, Woetzel issued a “heartfelt apology” in a note to the community.Last June, students protested a planned tuition increase, occupying parts of Juilliard’s Lincoln Center campus and holding street demonstrations. (Several other leading music and drama schools offer free tuition.)Kovner, who made his fortune as a hedge fund manager, has contributed extensively to conservative causes and has served on the boards of the American Enterprise Institute and the Manhattan Institute, both right-leaning think tanks. Last May, City Journal, which is published by the Manhattan Institute, criticized what it described as the school’s “growing cadre of diversity bureaucrats” in an article headlined “The Revolution Comes to Juilliard: Racial hysteria is consuming the school; unchecked, it will consume the arts.”Kovner has also supported left-leaning organizations, including the Innocence Project, which aims to free the wrongfully convicted; and Lambda Legal, devoted to civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.Now Juilliard is preparing for the next chapter. This week the school’s Duke Ellington Ensemble was scheduled to perform a celebration of the 20th anniversary of Juilliard Jazz at the Chelsea Factory, a new arts space. More