Orlando Ballet parts ways with executive director Cheryl Collins
As its 50th-anniversary season draws to a close and hot on the heels of its successful debut of a $3.6 million “Nutcracker,” Orlando Ballet is looking for a new executive director.
A statement provided to the Orlando Sentinel this week announced the company would not renew its contract with Cheryl Collins, who has led the organization as executive director since 2020.
Collins did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
“After seven years with Orlando Ballet, Cheryl Collins will not be returning as executive director when her contract expires at the end of the 2023-2024 season,” the ballet’s statement read. The season’s last production, “Casanova,” runs May 16-19.
“Artistic director Jorden Morris will serve as interim executive director as the board moves forward activating a search committee in the weeks ahead,” the statement read. Morris joined the company in 2020 as choreographer in residence. When then-artistic director Robert Hill resigned in August 2021, Morris stepped into that position on an interim basis until being given the top artistic job officially in December.
Orlando Ballet also has a strong, hands-on business leader in its board president, Jonathan Ledden, a financier who also spent a decade working as a production manager in the arts. He and wife Krista, also a board member, have donated more than $2 million to the organization and he previously served as the company’s interim executive director in 2017.
The latest leadership change comes after a period of stability and growth for Orlando Ballet, which in years past faced significant challenges. Between 2011 and 2018, the company had six executive directors, and in a cash crunch nearly shut its doors for good in 2015.
In 2016, after a 15-year career with Orlando Health Foundation, Collins came on board as development director before later being tapped as executive director. In announcing her promotion in 2020, when she replaced Shane Jewell, the ballet acknowledged the chaos she had helped calm.
“Cheryl effectively built a professional fund-raising effort in an organization that historically struggled with inconsistent leadership and a limited number of donors,” Orlando Ballet said at the time. She also was lauded as “instrumental in Orlando Ballet’s resurgence, growing contributed income 117 percent since 2016 and concurrently raising $13.5 million to build Harriett’s Orlando Ballet Centre,” the company’s headquarters at Loch Haven Park.
The company at the time also saluted her “strong sense of integrity and solid judgment,” along with her “strong leadership.”
This week’s statement praised Collins for her work as executive director during trying times and for overseeing large-scale projects such as the new “Nutcracker” production, which is expected to remain the company’s flagship show for the next 20 years.
“We thank Cheryl for her service and for taking the organization through some of its most challenging and exhilarating moments including the COVID-19 pandemic, our world premiere of ‘The Nutcracker,’ and our 50th
Golden Anniversary,” it read.
Orlando Ballet was one of few dance companies across the nation to maintain a full season of programming during the pandemic-caused entertainment shutdown, by re-choreographing works to keep dancers separated, shortening programs, eliminating intermissions to reduce contact, and using socially distanced seating for audience members.
The ballet’s announcement indicated the company’s lofty ambitions prompted a business decision to part ways with Collins.
“After this season’s success and our plans to continue our artistic and financial trajectory, and to achieve national prominence, the timing is right to position our leadership team for the future,” it stated. “We wish Cheryl the greatest success in her next venture.”
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