NEW YORK, NY.- The red carpet was rolled out, the Champagne was flowing, and the crowd of financiers, artists, philanthropists and socialites gathered in a Manhattan ballroom on a May evening began to cheer.

It was American Ballet Theater’s spring gala dinner, and the company had invited several hundred people for a performance — and a plea.

Susan Jaffe, Ballet Theater’s artistic director and a former star ballerina with the company, took to the stage and spoke of a new era. She said that Ballet Theater, which was founded in 1939 and remains one of the most prominent dance troupes in the United States, had a beloved repertoire and an abundance of talented artists.

But she also alluded to the company’s recent struggles, saying the troupe could not innovate without more financial support.

“I look forward,” she told the crowd, “to all the great strides we are going to make together.”

It was the 531st day of her tenure, and Jaffe, 62, was drained. For almost a year, she had served not only as Ballet Theater’s artistic chief — coaching dancers, hiring choreographers, planning seasons — but also as its executive director following the sudden resignation last year of Janet Rollé, who previously served in that position. Wearing two hats has meant that she is sometimes working 18-hour days: leading rehearsals of “Giselle” and “Swan Lake” one minute, scrutinizing tour schedules and budgets the next.

“I start my day with back-to-back meetings — just back to back to back to back to back to back to back meetings — and then I go directly into rehearsal,” she said in an interview at her office in the Flatiron district of Manhattan.

Jaffe has a knack for thriving under pressure. In 1980, when she was just 18, she made a celebrated debut at Ballet Theater when Mikhail Baryshnikov, then the company’s artistic director, plucked her from the corps de ballet at the last minute to dance a pas de deux in “Le Corsaire” with star Alexander Godunov. Before joining Ballet Theater as artistic director in 2022, she helped guide the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater through the turmoil of the pandemic.

Baryshnikov, a mentor to Jaffe, said she had the skills to be a formidable leader at Ballet Theater, which calls itself America’s national ballet company, with annual tours to California, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere.

“I know her as a strong woman with convictions and confidence,” Baryshnikov said. “I’ve encouraged her to trust her instincts and to believe in her abilities.”

But the challenges facing Ballet Theater, which begins its summer season at the Metropolitan Opera House this month, are daunting. Costs are rising, donations have declined, and audience habits are rapidly shifting. The company, known for lavish productions of story ballets like “Sleeping Beauty” and “Swan Lake,” faces pressure to broaden its audience and commission more new work. It recently lost its artist in residence, star choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, who left after 13 years for New York City Ballet.

Relations between management and the 92-member company have occasionally been tense: The dancers voted to authorize a strike during contract talks earlier this year, accusing the company of not providing a living wage or a robust work schedule. (Ballet Theater eventually reached a deal with the dancers, agreeing to raises and other benefits.)

Isabella Boylston, a principal dancer, praised Jaffe as a compassionate leader and a masterly coach. But she said the dancers were eager for more work. (Performances have fallen to 83 this season, compared to 114 in 2018-19.)

“We’re all just hungry to perform,” Boylston said. “Everyone wants this to be a sustainable profession, and everyone wants the company to flourish.”

Jaffe says she is unfazed by the challenges. She is working to hire more living choreographers, especially women and people of color; to expand Ballet Theater’s presence in the New York market, which New York City Ballet has come to dominate; and to line up more tours in the United States, Europe and Asia. Barry Hughson, a veteran dance administrator, joins the company this month as executive director, which will allow Jaffe to focus on her artistic duties.

At the gala, which raised $1.4 million, guests were greeted with a menu of donation options. They could give $35,000 to honor a principal dancer of their choosing; $25,000 to commission a work at Ballet Theater’s studio company; $5,000 to support wig construction and maintenance; $1,000 to provide 10 hours of massages for dancers; or $250 to buy two pairs of custom-made pointe shoes for a dancer (they often go through a pair a day).

Jaffe, in a tuxedo jacket, billowy white pants and a pearl necklace, snapped photos with dancers and donors in front of a glittering fuchsia wall festooned with the letters “ABT.”

“I see so much opportunity,” she said. “We can really start dreaming.”

But, she added: “We can’t rely on ‘This is how we’ve done it in the past. We have to really become creative about everything we do.”

Jaffe, who was born in Washington, D.C., and danced for 22 years with Ballet Theater, worked as a choreographer and educator after retiring from the stage in 2002. She served as dean of dance at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts from 2012 to 2020, before she was named artistic director of Pittsburgh Ballet Theater.

At American Ballet Theater, she took over from artistic director Kevin McKenzie, who led the company for three decades. McKenzie, too, inherited a company in trouble, which he helped put back on a healthy financial path.

Critics argued that the company, with a budget of about $51 million, had grown artistically staid, with some exceptions, like Ratmansky. But Ballet Theater has maintained an impressive slate of dancers, including stars like Boylston, Misty Copeland, Herman Cornejo and James Whiteside, even as it moves away from importing the big-name dancers who for so long gave the company its glamorous profile.

When Jaffe joined, the company was still reeling from the pandemic, which forced the cancellation of two seasons and cost the company millions of dollars in anticipated ticket revenue and touring fees. Ballet Theater’s subscriber base, which has traditionally been an important source of income, was also eroding; it fell to 2,516 in the most recent season, from 6,251 in 2018-19.

Not long into Jaffe’s tenure, Rollé, Ballet Theater’s CEO and executive director, resigned after just 17 months on the job. Her departure, coming a week before the start of the summer season, left Ballet Theater scrambling. But Jaffe helped bring stability.

“The company rallied around her, emotionally, spiritually and financially,” said Andrew F. Barth, chair of Ballet Theater’s board. “We’re ready for the new era.”

Jaffe said she did not hesitate to take on the executive director position. “When something is falling off a ledge, you just grab it,” she said. “You don’t even think about it.”

As executive director, Jaffe has worked to expand the audience for Ballet Theater’s offerings and to build a new base of donors.

“We want to create the vibrancy and financial stability that the company deserves,” she said.

Ballet Theater suffered a major setback in 2022, when a significant source of revenue — the summer season at the Met — was curtailed after the opera house extended its own performances into June. That decision forced the company to reduce its season at the Met to five weeks from eight. (The company also performs a brief fall season at the David H. Koch Theater.)

There have been recent signs of hope. Attendance for Ballet Theater’s now-slimmer season is averaging about 69% of capacity, compared with 63% in the 2018-19 season. Story ballets, the company’s bread and butter, are still hits: “Swan Lake” had 93% attendance last summer, and “Romeo and Juliet” had 86% attendance. (By contrast Christopher Wheeldon’s extravagant new ballet, “Like Water for Chocolate,” had 65% attendance.)

But ticket revenues only go so far, covering less than half of Ballet Theater’s annual budget, making fundraising essential.

During the pandemic, philanthropic gifts declined, and the number of board members fell to 38 from 47. (Donations totaled $17.7 million in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available, compared with $20.2 million in 2019.)

Jaffe has worked to replenish the board. She turned this year’s spring gala into a preview of the summer season and moved the event to May, with the hope of drawing more New York-based donors. (“Usually when we’re performing in June,” she said, “everybody is in the Hamptons or Italy.”)

On the artistic side, Jaffe has won praise from dancers for her empathetic approach. She speaks openly about the mental and physical toll of performing and offers advice on building confidence.

“She’s an icon in the ballet world,” said principal dancer Gillian Murphy, “but she’s so down to earth.”

Jaffe has sought to commission a wider variety of choreographers, including Kyle Abraham, Helen Pickett and Gemma Bond. (Pickett’s work, based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” will be the first full-length ballet by a woman commissioned by Ballet Theater, Jaffe said.)

“I want choreographers to tackle new sensibilities,” she said, “along with really creating something that’s more classical.”

Choreographer Wayne McGregor, whose triptych “Woolf Works” will be an anchor of the summer season, said he hoped that Jaffe would get the financial resources to support her vision. He said she retained a sense of joy even under pressure.

“You don’t feel like a choreographer for hire,” he said. “You really feel that she’s passionate about her work and that she wants to invest deeply with her time, intelligence and her blazing articulation.”

Ending her whirlwind year as interim executive director, Jaffe said she was looking forward to spending more time coaching dancers.

On a recent day, she was in the studio rehearsing Thomas Forster and rising star Chloe Misseldine in a scene from John Cranko’s “Eugene Onegin.” Jaffe flipped through a notebook that she kept when she performed the role of Tatiana decades earlier at Ballet Theater: notes on Russian history and culture, and musings on the characters.

Jaffe stopped Misseldine at one point, asking her to describe her inner monologue at each turn. Why did Tatiana get out of a chair? Why did she turn away from Onegin?

She praised the dancers. “It’s really good helping them find their way,” she said on her way out of the studio.

Back in her office, Jaffe said she had been obsessed with “Onegin” during her dancer days. She recalled seeking advice from dancer Marcia Haydée, who originated the role, during a chance encounter at a cafe in Stuttgart, Germany.

After retiring from the stage, Jaffe considered a career outside dance. But she said she heard a voice that said: “You’re so selfish. You learned from all the legends of the field. You have no choice but to pass it on.”

Jaffe compared Ballet Theater to a family and said she felt a duty to find a path forward for the company.

“Being able to pass it on — that’s what makes me feel useful and alive,” she said. “What could be better?”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.