The most consequential words in an institution’s life are not always delivered from a stage. Sometimes they arrive before the building exists, while the dream still sounds unreasonable and success remains theoretical. When Dan Doctoroff described his vision for The Shed to Darla Moore, the formidable South Carolinian answered: “I’m in.”
Frankly, what else would one expect from a woman introduced as somewhere between Kim Basinger and the Terminator? Swoon. I may have found my new shero.
That act of faith hovered rather beautifully over The Shed’s 2026 Gala on September 17, where Moore and fellow board member Colby Mugrabi were honored for helping shape an institution that has become both a cultural destination and an argument for creative risk. Approximately 500 guests attended across the dinner and after-party, raising $2.1 million for its artistic mission.
Still, the dinner felt remarkably intimate. The gathering possessed less of the brittle pageantry of a benefit than the warmth of people who understood what had been built together. Affection moved through the room without becoming sentimental. Pride remained present, certainly, alongside gratitude, humor and the knowledge that cultural landmarks require more than architecture. They demand nerve, money, imagination and individuals prepared to commit before applause becomes inevitable.
That breadth was visible among attendees Kara Young, Kamilah Forbes, Sade Lythcott, Jeff Koons, Marc Jacobs, Thom Browne, Andrew Bolton, Sam Levinson and Camille A. Brown—a constellation of theater, visual art, fashion, film and dance. Their presence made the evening a portrait of The Shed itself: distinct disciplines meeting beneath one roof, each contributing another form of intelligence.
Moore embodies that union of force and vision. Raised near Lake City, South Carolina, she traveled from a family farm to the heights of New York finance, becoming the first woman profiled on the cover of Fortune. Her subsequent philanthropy has supported education, public space and cultural development, including the transformation of her hometown through the arts.
Her involvement with The Shed belongs to a larger philosophy: capital should not merely accumulate; it should activate. Earlier this year, the institution inaugurated the Darla Moore Gallery in recognition of her generosity. The naming feels especially apt. Moore did not attach herself to a finished success. She believed when it was still an idea, answering uncertainty with commitment and allowing possibility to acquire walls, light and, eventually, a public.
Mugrabi was celebrated with equal affection as a curator, impresario and rather glamorous “art sleuth.” Her role in helping rediscover Luna Luna—the artist-designed amusement park that welcomed nearly 200,000 visitors last year—reveals another form of stewardship. Sometimes supporting the future requires rescuing a nearly vanished past, then giving it sufficient scale to astonish a new generation.
The building has always understood transformation. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Rockwell Group, the 200,000-square-foot Bloomberg Building opened in 2019 with a telescoping shell capable of gliding across rails to create the McCourt performance hall. Its architecture expands and reorganizes itself according to artistic need—a machine constructed, quite literally, to make room for imagination.
That adaptability mirrors The Shed’s purpose. Visual art, theater, music, dance, technology and popular culture collide, seduce and occasionally disrupt one another. Within a city filled with venerable institutions guarding glorious histories, The Shed has become something equally necessary: a capital for the unfinished, the hybrid and the not-yet-entirely-understood.
The Dan Doctoroff Disruptor Award honored that spirit in Lynn Nottage, John Legend and Whitney White, the creative team behind the forthcoming world premiere of Imitation of Life. Inspired by Fannie Hurst’s 1933 novel, the musical follows two mothers—one Black, one white—and their daughters as they navigate ambition, identity, race and class in America. Nottage wrote the book, Legend composed the score, and White directs in collaboration with National Black Theatre.
Legend and Adrienne Warren offered a ravishing first taste through a special two-song performance. His polish met her theatrical force, allowing the production to appear less like another adaptation than a reclamation—an American story returning through Black artistry, contemporary intelligence and voices powerful enough to complicate the inheritance.
Later came Doug Aitken’s Lightscape, followed by Jamie xx, who transformed the evening’s cerebral electricity into movement. Yet the gala’s greatest spectacle may have been the conviction beneath it all. The glamour was abundant; the deeper seduction lay in witnessing a community gathered around experimentation rather than certainty.
The Shed was designed to move, and perhaps its patrons understood that culture must do the same. Moore’s “I’m in” made that motion possible before steel, wheels or acclaim could guarantee the outcome. Years later, those words sounded less like an agreement than a philosophy: believe early, give boldly and leave enough room for brilliance to become something no one could have predicted.
