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      Los Angeles to Require Masks at Large Outdoor Concerts and Events

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      The order comes as the spread of the Delta variant has driven up caseloads.Facing a continuing increase in coronavirus cases, Los Angeles County said Tuesday that it would require masks be worn at large outdoor concerts and sporting events that attract more than 10,000 people.The new regulation, which takes effect at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, means that people attending the Hollywood Bowl and Dodger Stadium, as well as outdoor music festivals and what the county describes as “mega events,” will now have to wear masks. The rule will apply to people regardless of their vaccination status.People will be allowed to slip off their masks when eating and drinking, but only briefly.The order came as cities around the nation have taken steps to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Chicago joined Los Angeles County, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and other areas to require masks in public indoor places. New York City is requiring proof of vaccination for dining and entertainment activities indoors; Broadway is requiring proof of vaccination and masks as it reopens.The new rules requiring masks at large outdoor events in Los Angeles came as the county reported that cases, hospitalizations and positivity rates have increased markedly. Los Angeles County has been averaging 3,361 new cases a day, an 18 percent increase over its average two weeks ago, according to data collected by The New York Times.Los Angeles County has been aggressive in instituting masks requirements in the face of evidence that the Delta variant of the virus has been spreading. It required people to wear masks in indoor public spaces last month, again regardless of vaccination status.Covid policies at the Hollywood Bowl have shifted repeatedly during the year as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which runs the Bowl, has sought to follow changing county regulations. It has drawn big crowds over the past six weeks. With few exceptions, people in the audience have been maskless, as had been permitted under county rules. But they have tended to put on their masks as they join the crush of people moving down the crowded walkways after the show. More

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      Taylor Mac’s ‘Joy and Pandemic’ Is Postponed as Covid Cases Surge

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      The play, which had been set to have its world premiere in September at the Magic Theater in San Francisco, takes place during the 1918 flu pandemic.Taylor Mac’s “Joy and Pandemic,” a play set during the 1918 flu pandemic, was a bright spot on the horizon at the Magic Theater in San Francisco: a world-premiere production, to open in September for what would have been the theater’s first live audience in 18 months.But now, in a further life-meets-art-meets-life twist, the production, which was announced in March, has been postponed indefinitely because of the Delta-variant-driven surge in Covid cases.“Timing is everything,” Mac said in a statement. “With the rise of infections, this is not the time to engage wholeheartedly with the themes in this work. Our hope is that time will come soon.”Mac is best known for “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music,” a marathon 24-hour performance piece that takes in all of American history through song, refracted through a radical queer lens (and involving some exuberant audience participation). “Joy and Pandemic,” to be directed by Loretta Greco, was partly inspired by some of Mac’s research for that show and had been commissioned by the Magic, a 144-seat nonprofit theater with which Mac has a long association, before the Covid-19 pandemic.The play (in which Mac will not appear) is set in Philadelphia in September 1918, near the end of World War I — on the day of the Fourth Liberty Loan Parade, which became an infamous superspreader event — and also flashes forward to 1951. It is set in a children’s art school and deals in part with Christian Science, in which Mac was raised.In an email on Wednesday, Mac called “Joy and Pandemic” a work “with a lot of humor,” and wrote that the realization that the Delta variant can infect even vaccinated people “would alter the way the audience is able to listen.”But “‘Joy and Pandemic’ isn’t really about a pandemic (just set during one),” Mac said. “It’s more about how belief, hope and faith collide with reality. So our pandemic’s progress, and the way Americans have politicized it, has only deepened the major theme of the play.”The postponement came as some live theater has begun an uncertain return in the San Francisco Bay Area. On Tuesday, “Hamilton” reopened at the Orpheum Theater, where the audience of roughly 2,000 were required to submit proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test. And on Wednesday, the Berkeley Repertory Theater pushed back its season opening from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12, and will now open with Charles Mee’s “Wintertime.”Sean San José, the Magic’s recently appointed artistic director, vowed that Mac’s show will, ultimately, go on.“This is, as Taylor Mac has reminded me, a time for ‘radical empathy,’” San José said in a statement. “This piece WILL be premiering at Magic, but with the uncertainty around variant strains, we cannot fully embrace the resonance in the work. We need proper reflection time for this piece to be rightfully presented.” More

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      'West Side Story' Will Return $10 Million Federal Aid

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      The Broadway revival received federal aid through the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program. But the show decided not to reopen, and said it would return the money.Earlier this summer “West Side Story,” the ambitious, avant-garde-tinged revival of the classic musical, got some significant relief: $10 million in federal funding. It was the maximum amount allowed under the new Shuttered Venue Operators Grant initiative, which devoted $16 billion in federal aid to help music clubs, theaters and other live-event businesses recover from the pandemic.But even with that aid in its war chest, the show announced this week that it would not return to Broadway. Asked about the grant on Tuesday, the show said it would give back the money.“‘West Side Story’ will be returning the entirety of the S.V.O.G. grant with the hope that another production will be able to use the funds,” a spokesman for the show, Rick Miramontez, said in a statement.The revival — which was reimagined by the director Ivo van Hove and the choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker — opened to mixed reviews in February 2020, less than a month before the coronavirus outbreak shut down Broadway. While it was closed, its lead producer, Scott Rudin, announced in April 2021 that he would step back from active roles in his Broadway productions after he came under fire for a long history of abusive behavior; he said that he hoped the show would reopen without him.Federal records showed that Danish San Juan Limited Liability Company, which court records said had been formed by Rudin to operate “West Side Story,” had been approved to receive $10 million under the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant initiative. Documents posted by the Small Business Administration, which runs the grant program, say that the federal funding is intended for “entities that are currently operating or intend to resume full operations.”“West Side Story” had grossed $1.5 million in ticket sales the week before the pandemic closed it down. Miramontez did not respond when asked to elaborate on why the show had decided to close, despite the federal aid.During the long shutdown, and with the prospects for rebounding uncertain, Broadway shows, nightclubs and arts institutions across the city jumped at the prospect of federal relief. This spring, after a long wait and many hiccups, more than 10,000 music clubs, theaters and other live-event businesses across the country got a share of a $16 billion federal grant, records show.The records also show that many of New York’s best known cultural institutions got millions of dollars in funding, as did Broadway musicals like “Hamilton” and “Hadestown,” which plan to open next month.Stacy Cowley contributed reporting. More

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      Lend Us Your Ears, and Don’t Forget Your Farm Boots

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      Seeing a play at Willow Wisp Organic Farm in Damascus, Pa., has a simple but highly recommended dress code: sturdy shoes.At the farm, which recently finished a run of a site-specific play about climate change, the boundless stage includes a courtyard lined with hydrangeas, greenhouses and a field of flowers. Over four nights last week, audience members trekked the outdoors there, walking from scene to scene, as the actors, musicians and stilt walkers performed in vibrant, whimsical costumes.The performance is the second installment of a decade-long series, “Dream on the Farm,” in which the Farm Arts Collective, whose home is on the 30 acres, plans to produce one play a year centered on climate change.“This is an intense and troubled time and as an organic farmer and theater maker, we’ve got to keep making work about this issue,” said Tannis Kowalchuk, the ensemble’s artistic director, who started the farm — which sits just across the river from New York — with her husband, Greg Swartz. (They sell their wares at the Union Square and Grand Army Plaza farmers’ markets.)Tannis Kowalchuk, artistic director of Farm Arts Collective, directed the show. She is also a co-owner of Willow Wisp Organic Farm with her husband, Greg Swartz.Jess Beveridge, left, and Annie Hat at a rehearsal in June. The show was the second of 10 annual plays about climate change that the collective is planning to perform.A rehearsal inside a Farm Arts Collective greenhouse on a rainy day. The collective is a group of artists and farmers. This year’s play transported guests into an “Alice in Wonderland”-esque fantasy in which two scientists, the astronomer Carl Sagan and the biologist Lynn Margulis, are brought back from the dead to help save life on Earth from the climate disaster. Audience members watch as Sagan encounters eccentric characters representing the atmosphere and the hydrosphere, as well as a man trying to find a way to escape the planet through space travel. The rest of the group followed the Margulis character on the other side of the farm. (The audience was split into two to avoid overcrowding.)At the end of the show, the audience of about 80 people received chilled cucumber soup made from ingredients grown on the land.Audience members walked from scene to scene, including through a corridor of painted fabric, essentially going on a walking tour of the farm.Audience members made their way to the next act.An assistant director’s notes and a snack from the harvest table.Waiting in the wings: Daniel Lendzain chilled out before making his entrance on opening night.It was the job of Simon Kowalchuk-Swartz (son of Kowalchuk and Swartz), to transport the musical instruments. The pianist Doug Rogers, left, also helped compose original music, and the guitarist Melissa Bell helped write the play.But the reality of the pandemic burst the fantasy bubble on Sunday after one of the people in the accompanying band tested positive for the coronavirus, despite having been vaccinated, and the arts collective decided to cancel the fifth and final performance.Kowalchuk said she hopes the play will be performed again, though. She has imagined bringing it to New York City, where the ensemble might be able to find a new stage in a park or botanical garden.The “Alice in Wonderland”-esque play posed a question: Is it better to look at climate change through a wide angle lens or a microscope?Marguerite Boissonnault played the character Fungus.Gregg Erickson played the character Hydrosphere.Cast members, including Hudson Williams-Eynon, center, in white, faced off in a tug-of-war.Williams-Eynon, Beveridge and the rest of the cast took a bow after a performance. More

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      Jacob Desvarieux, Guitarist Who Forged Zouk Style, Dies at 65

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      His band, Kassav’, found millions of listeners as it held on to Caribbean roots while reaching out to the world. He died of Covid-19.This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.Jacob Desvarieux, the guitarist and singer who led Kassav’, an internationally popular band from the French Antilles, died on July 30 in a hospital in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, the island where he lived. He was 65.The cause was Covid 19, Agence France-Presse reported.Mr. Desvarieux and the founder of Kassav’, the bassist Pierre-Edouard Décimus, created a style called zouk by fusing Afro-Caribbean traditions of the French Antilles with sleek electronic dance music.Kassav’ made nearly two dozen official studio albums, and the band recorded an additional two dozen studio albums credited to individual members, along with extensive live recordings.Kassav’ toured worldwide and sold in the millions, particularly in France and in French-speaking Caribbean and African countries. Mr. Desvarieux shaped a vast majority of the band’s songs as guitarist, songwriter, arranger or producer, and his amiably gruff voice often shared the band’s lead vocals, with lyrics in French Antillean Creole. Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, paid tribute on Twitter: “Sacred zouk monster. Outstanding guitarist. Emblematic voice of the Antilles. Jacob Desvarieux was all of these at the same time.” Kassav’ made suave, irresistibly upbeat music with a carnival spirit, and purposefully stayed connected to its Afro-Caribbean roots. Its albums mingled love songs and party songs with sociopolitical commentary, sometimes couched in double entendres. The core of the zouk beat drew on gwo ka, from Guadeloupe, and chouval bwa, from Martinique: two traditions rooted in the drumming of enslaved Africans.“Through our music, we question our origins,” Mr. Desvarieux said in a 2016 interview with the French newspaper Libération. “What were we doing there, we who were Black and spoke French? Like African Americans in the United States, we were looking for answers to pick up the thread of a story that had been confiscated from us.”He added, “Without being politicians or activists, Kassav’ carried it all. From our faces to the themes in our songs, everything was very clear: We were West Indian, there should be no mistake, we wanted to mark our difference.”Jacob F. Desvarieux was born in Paris on Nov. 21, 1955, but he soon moved to Guadeloupe, where his mother, Cécile Desvarieux, was born; she raised him as a single parent and did domestic work. They lived in Guadeloupe and Martinique, in Paris and, for two years, in Senegal.When Jacob was 10, he asked his mother for a bicycle; she gave him a guitar instead, considering it less dangerous.After returning to France, he joined rock bands in the 1970s, playing songs from Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix, and worked as a studio guitarist. His own music increasingly looked to Caribbean and African styles, including compas from Haiti, Congolese soukous from what was then Zaire, rumba from Cuba, highlife from Ghana and makossa from Cameroon.One of his bands in the 1970s, Zulu Gang, included musicians from Cameroon; Mr. Desvarieux also worked with the Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango, who had the international hit “Soul Makossa.”In 1979 in Paris, Mr. Desvarieux met Pierre-Édouard Décimus, a musician from Guadeloupe with an ambitious concept for a new band: strongly rooted in the West Indies but reaching outward. “We were looking to find a soundtrack that synthesized all the traditions and previous sounds, but that could be exported everywhere,” Mr. Desvarieux told Libération.Kassav’ was named after a Gaudeloupean dish, a cassava-flour pancake, and also after ka, a drum. A zouk was a dance party, and a 1984 hit by Mr. Desvarieux, “Zouk-La-Se Sel Medikaman Nou Ni” (“Zouk Is the Only Medicine We Have”), made the word zouk synonymous with the band’s style.Mr. Desvarieux, left, performing in Abidjan in the Ivory Coast in 2009. Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, said of him on Twitter: “Sacred zouk monster. Outstanding guitarist. Emblematic voice of the Antilles.” Sia Kambou/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesKassav’ released its debut album, “Love and Ka Dance,” in 1979. “It was successful because it was Antillean music — it was local,” Mr. Desvarieux told Reggae & African Beat magazine in 1986. “But it was also better made than other Antillean discs. The instruments and vocals were in tune, and there were more sounds, like synthesizers and things like that — all the things that were not heard in Antillean records.”As the band pumped out new music, its early influences from disco and rock receded; Kassav’ simultaneously brought out its Caribbean essence and mastered programming and electronic sounds.It had a commercial breakthrough in 1983, with “Banzawa,” a single from what was nominally a solo album by Mr. Desvarieux and was later repackaged as a Kassav’ album. The 1984 album “Yélélé,” which was billed as a project by Mr. Desvarieux and Georges Décimus (Pierre-Edouard’s brother) and later credited to Kassav’, included the single “Zouk-La-Se Sel Medikaman Nou Ni.” With 100,000 copies sold, it was the first gold record for an Antillean band, and it led to Kassav’ being signed to Sony Music and distributed internationally. By the end of the 1980s, the sound of zouk was influencing dance music worldwide.In 1988, Kassav’ was named Group of the Year by Victoires de la Musique, an award presented by French Ministry of Culture.Zouk’s popularity peaked as the 1980s ended, but Kassav’ continued to draw huge audiences. From the 1980s onward, Kassav’ regularly played long residences at the 8,000-seat arena Le Zenith, where it recorded live albums in 1986, 1993, 1996, 2005 and 2016; Mr. Desvarieux estimated that the band performed there 60 times.For the band’s 30th anniversary, in 2009, Kassav’ played at France’s national stadium, Stade de France, and in 2019, it sold out its 40th anniversary concert at the 40,000-seat Paris La Défense Arena.Kassav’ also toured across continents and built a huge, loyal audience, particularly in Africa, where it has drawn stadium-sized crowds since the 1980s. The Senegalese songwriter Youssou N’Dour wrote on Twitter, “The West Indies, Africa and music have just lost one of their greatest Ambassadors.” In Luanda, the capital of Angola, there is a museum of zouk, La Maison du Zouk, that has a collection of 10,000 albums. Mr. Desvarieux and Pierre-Édouard Décimus attended its opening in 2012.Mr. Desvarieux was also occasionally cast for film and television. In 2016, he appeared as an African cardinal in the HBO series “The Young Pope.”Mr. Desvarieux welcomed collaborations with musicians from Africa and the Caribbean. He appeared on Wyclef Jean’s 1997 album “The Carnival” and recorded songs with the Ivory Coast reggae singer Alpha Blondy and with Toofan, a group from Togo.“Laisse Parler les Gens” (“Let the People Talk),” a 2003 single he made with the Guadeloupean singer Jocelyne Labylle, the Congolese singer Cheela and the Congolese rapper Passi, sold more than a million copies.Mr. Desvarieux, whose immunity was weakened because he had had a kidney transplant, was hospitalized with Covid-19 on July 12 and placed in a medically induced coma before his death.Information on survivors was not immediately available.Throughout the band’s career, even after Kassav’ was signed to multinational labels and encouraged to sing in English, the band’s lyrics were always in French Antilles Creole, insisting on its island heritage. “The music is a stronger language than the language itself,” Mr. Desvarieux said in 1986. “If the music pleases, the language isn’t important.” More

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      Baltimore Symphony Fires Flutist Who Shared Covid Conspiracy Theories

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      The musician, Emily Skala, who shared misinformation on social media, has vowed to challenge her dismissal.The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra said on Thursday that it had fired a musician who provoked controversy earlier this year when she shared Covid-19 conspiracy theories and other misinformation on social media.The musician, Emily Skala, 59, the orchestra’s principal flutist for more than three decades, shared posts casting doubt on the efficacy of vaccines and masks. Her posts drew criticism from musicians, audience members and donors in Baltimore and beyond.The orchestra said it was dismissing Skala because she had repeatedly violated its policies, though it did not offer details except to say that the problems went beyond social media posts. Skala said in an interview that the orchestra’s leaders had also accused her of breaching safety protocols by not submitting to coronavirus tests before visiting the Baltimore Symphony’s offices in the spring.“Unfortunately, she has repeated the conduct for which she had been previously disciplined, and dismissal was the necessary and appropriate reaction to this behavior,” Peter Kjome, the orchestra’s president and chief executive, said in a statement.The Baltimore Sun reported earlier on the orchestra’s decision to fire Skala.The dispute is unfolding amid a heated debate over the rights of individuals as local governments and businesses work to bring the pandemic under control by imposing mask mandates and requiring vaccines. There are also widespread concerns about the rapid spread of anti-vaccine messaging on social media platforms.Skala vowed to challenge her dismissal, saying the orchestra had created a hostile environment. She said she was being attacked for expressing unpopular views and that the orchestra’s leaders failed to protect her from harassment.“When you’re a target, every day is a trap,” Skala said in the interview. “They just punish me for being me.”Skala said she was working with the Musicians’ Association of Metropolitan Baltimore, the union that represents the orchestra’s players, to file a formal grievance. The union declined to comment.Orchestra players are often tenured, like university professors, and have strong protections against being fired. Last year, the New York Philharmonic, which had fired two players over allegations of unspecified sexual misconduct, was forced by an arbitrator to reinstate them.But businesses often have wide latitude to dismiss employees they consider to be troublesome, so long as they do so in accordance with collective bargaining agreements, legal experts say. “People can be fired if what they say or how they behave is disruptive to the purpose or the culture,” Kathleen Cahill, an employment lawyer in Maryland, said in an interview. “Employees often don’t have the ‘freedom’ and ‘First Amendment rights’ they think they do.”Amid the pandemic, employers will likely have even greater latitude to require employees to follow policies designed to keep workplaces safe, Cahill added.Skala shared false theories suggesting that the coronavirus was created in a laboratory in North Carolina; she also shared posts raising concerns about the safety of vaccines. In the interview, she said she suffered from autoimmune disorders and was distressed by efforts to mandate vaccines. She said she did not believe she was required to get tested for Covid-19 before visiting the orchestra’s offices to meet with staff there, since she had been suspended and was no longer performing.“I’ve been misunderstood,” she said. “I feel I am standing in truth.”Earlier this year, Skala angered many of her colleagues for sharing posts questioning the results of the 2020 presidential election. She was also criticized for saying that Black families needed to do more to support their children’s classical music studies in emails to colleagues about efforts to increase diversity at the Baltimore Symphony. (The emails were later leaked and posted on Twitter.) She also described in one of the leaked messages feeling discrimination early in her career as “a female gentile in a flute section of middle- to old-aged Jewish men.”The orchestra did not mention those comments in dismissing Skala. But in February, when Skala’s remarks about the coronavirus and election fraud began to circulate, it issued a statement distancing itself. “Ms. Skala does not speak for the B.S.O., nor do her statements reflect our core values or code of conduct grounded in humanity and respect,” the orchestra said at the time.Skala’s critics said they were pleased with the orchestra’s decision to dismiss her. Melissa Wimbish, a soprano in Baltimore, posted the leaked emails on Twitter in February. Wimbish, who has performed with the orchestra, also organized an online petition calling for Skala to be punished, which gathered more than 1,000 signatures.“They have this responsibility to react to these statements and distance themselves,” Wimbish said in an interview, referring to the orchestra’s leaders. “It’s good to see there’s some justice.” More

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      The Offspring’s Drummer Says He Was Dropped For Being Unvaccinated

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      “It has recently been decided that I am unsafe to be around, in the studio, and on tour,” Pete Parada said, citing medical reasons for not getting vaccinated.Pete Parada, the drummer for the pop-punk band the Offspring, says his decision not to get a Covid-19 vaccination for medical reasons has cost him his job.“Since I am unable to comply with what is increasingly becoming an industry mandate — it has recently been decided that I am unsafe to be around, in the studio, and on tour,” Mr. Parada said on Instagram on Tuesday. “I mention this because you won’t be seeing me at these upcoming shows.”His doctor had advised him not to get vaccinated, Mr. Parada said, because he has Guillain-Barré syndrome, a disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks nerves.“The risks far outweigh the benefits,” he said, adding that he had caught the virus last year and suffered mild effects from it.“I am confident I’d be able to handle it again,” he said of the virus, “but I’m not so certain I’d survive another post-vaccination round” of the syndrome. The Food and Drug Administration last month said Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine may be associated with a small increased risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome. There is not yet any data to suggest a link between the condition and Covid-19 vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech or by Moderna, both of which rely upon a different technology.Mr. Parada also said he did not support “those with the most power” dictating medical procedures to others, citing governments, corporations and employers.It’s unclear whether Mr. Parada was dropped permanently or temporarily from the band. The Offspring became famous in the 1990s with such songs as “Why Don’t You Get a Job?” and “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy).” Mr. Parada joined in 2007 and this year performed on its latest album, “Let the Bad Times Roll,” its first in nearly a decade.A request for comment from the band was not immediately returned early Wednesday.An Offspring concert scheduled for Sunday in Los Angeles is sold out, and dozens of other dates across the United States and Europe are scheduled through next summer.In recent weeks, there has been a deluge of vaccine mandates from companies amid concerns about the spread of the Delta variant. Tyson Foods and Microsoft were the latest to require employees to be vaccinated. Arts institutions have also begun to require vaccinations for people visiting museums, shows and concerts. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday that New York City will become the first U.S. city to require proof of at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine for indoor dining, gyms and other activities.Mr. Parada said he doesn’t have any negative feelings toward the band, adding, “They’re doing what they believe is best for them, while I am doing the same.” More

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      Lincoln Center Names Shanta Thake as its New Artistic Leader

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      Shanta Thake, a theater executive, faces challenges that include helping the center embrace new genres and attract virus-wary audiences.Feeling the pressure to attract new audiences and rethink its offerings even before being upended by the coronavirus pandemic, Lincoln Center announced on Tuesday that it had chosen a theater executive with a reputation for working across disciplines as its next artistic leader.Shanta Thake, most recently an associate artistic director at the Public Theater, will assume the role of chief artistic officer at the center, the nation’s largest performing arts complex, as it works to broaden its appeal beyond classical music and ballet into genres such as hip-hop, poetry and songwriting.Thake — who at the Public spent a decade managing Joe’s Pub, a cabaret-style venue, and more recently began overseeing Under the Radar, Public Works and other programs there — said she was eager to bring more popular and world music to Lincoln Center.“The goal is expansive reach,” Thake, 41, said in an interview. “What’s missing? What have we left out? What stories aren’t we telling that feel like they’re demanding to be told in this moment?”Lincoln Center is the landlord of the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet and other independent institutions, which are responsible for their own programming. But it is also a presenting organization in its own right, putting on hundreds of events each year and running the Mostly Mozart and White Light festivals, which have been primarily devoted to the classical arts. The center and its constituent organizations have competed, sometimes tensely, for rehearsal and performance space, ticket sales and donations.Thake will oversee the work Lincoln Center presents, and said in the interview that its robust classical offerings would be maintained. “We’re not looking to erase history here,” she said.But center officials say they are still working out the future of Mostly Mozart, which was put on hold amid the pandemic, other than a few small events this week. In 2017, as it grappled with budgetary constraints, the center dissolved the Lincoln Center Festival to focus on reinventing Mostly Mozart, its summertime sibling.Thake, who starts next month, replaces Jane Moss, who played a key role in programming for nearly three decades and stepped down as artistic director last year — and who also came from a theater background. (The chief artistic officer title is a new one.) Thake joins the center at one of the most challenging moments since it opened in 1962. Its woes predate the coronavirus: It struggled for years from leadership churn and money problems.Then the pandemic wiped away tens of millions in revenue and forced the cancellation of hundreds of events. About half of Lincoln Center’s staff of 400 was furloughed or laid off, and its top leaders took pay cuts.While many workers have been rehired and indoor performances are set to resume in the fall, the center will likely be grappling with the financial fallout for years. It remains to be seen whether audiences will return at prepandemic levels, especially given the recent spread of the Delta variant of the virus.Henry Timms, Lincoln Center’s president and chief executive, said the organization had turned to Thake for her experience programming creatively across genres. “We wanted someone who could kind of help us think about some new territory,” he said.Timms said the virus would continue to pose a challenge for the center’s artistic ambitions, but added that he believed audiences were eager to return. “There will be a great deal of demand for what we do and there will be a great deal of re-imagination,” he said.As infections have eased in recent months and vaccines have become widely available, Lincoln Center has started to come back to life, building several outdoor stages and transforming its plaza into a summer gathering place by covering it in a synthetic lawn. When indoor performances resume, the center plans to require vaccines for audience members, production staff and artists. Children under 12 will not be permitted to attend performances since they are currently not eligible for vaccines.Thake said she saw her mission as, in part, to “lift up the city that is still reeling from the ongoing trauma” of the pandemic. She said Lincoln Center could play a role in helping smaller arts organizations, for example by sharing best practices for reopening venues.“Hopefully we can make it to the other side all together,” she said.Thake, whose mother is Indian and whose father is white, said she was committed to presenting artists who represent a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. Cultural institutions have in general been slow to respond to demands for a reckoning over racial justice in the United States. But Lincoln Center is one of the few arts organizations to show substantial progress in bringing more diversity to its upper ranks. People of color now make up about half of its leadership team. More