It is the sort of buzzy production that was once a staple of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire,” with its Oscar-nominated lead man, Paul Mescal, has people clamoring for tickets to BAM’s production this month.

The excitement recalls a period when the performing arts center consistently drew crowds to see imports like the Royal Shakespeare Company or cutting-edge work by directors like Peter Brook, composers like Philip Glass or choreographers like Pina Bausch and Martha Graham.

Over the past decade, though, critics say the academy’s pioneering triumphs have been scarcer, the schedule thinner and the productions more modest.

BAM’s financial condition, while improving, is still fragile. In the five years ending in June 2024, the staff declined by more than a third, the endowment lost ground and its nearly $52 million operating budget is still smaller than it was 10 years ago.

“Their inability to drive revenues and manage cost escalation makes it harder to pursue their artistic mission,” Declan Webb, a consultant to nonprofit arts organizations, said in a recent interview. “You have to do less and you’re much more risk-averse and that is not a recipe for artistic growth.”