Kennedy Center sees wave of cancellations

The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. has experienced a lot of upheaval since President Donald Trump named himself chairman of the board. Since then he’s installed a lot of pro-Trump people and fired a lot of Joe Biden appointees, while several others resigned in protest. Meanwhile, shows and artists scheduled to appear at the celebrated venue are dropping like flies. According to a statement from the Kennedy Center, there have been more than 20 cancellations or postponements since Trump’s semi-hostile takeover of the institution. 

“In the spirit of transparency due to the litany of misinformation being spread in the press, it is important to give the public a complete account of program cancellations over the past six months,” said Roma Daravi, VP of public relations at the center in a statement posted to social media. “In fact, the only shows under the Kennedy Center umbrella that we have canceled since February 12th were due to lack of sales or artist availability.”

pic.twitter.com/du8LIPssrC

— The Kennedy Center (@kencen) March 7, 2025

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Of the acts listed, only three are noted as canceled for low ticket sales, while two others are noted as canceled for “financial reasons.” In almost every other instance, the dates were canceled by the artist or show producer. If the goal of this statement was to make it seem like the plethora of cancellations didn’t have anything to do with the chaos behind the scenes of the center, it wasn’t particularly effective. Most of the artists—including Issa Rae, Peter Wolf, Amanda Rheaume, Low Cut Connie, Rhiannon Giddens, and more—have made public statements specifying that their cancellations were a response to the firings. In a statement about the Hamilton cancellation, producer Jeffery Seller said, “Hamilton was proudly performed at the Kennedy Center in 2018 during the first Trump administration. We are not acting against his administration, but against the partisan policies of the Kennedy Center as a result of his recent takeover.”

Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda also gave a statement (via Vulture), saying, “This latest action by Trump means it’s not the Kennedy Center as we knew it. The Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center. We’re just not going to be part of it.” The center’s new president Richard Grenell, who has declared he wants to “make art great again,” called Hamilton‘s cancellation “a publicity stunt that will backfire,” adding, “The Arts are for everyone — not just for the people who Lin likes and agrees with.”

The Kennedy Center itself has distanced itself from any claims that it canceled any programming for political reasons. Both the Gay Men’s Chorus and the children’s musical Finn were canceled by the center, with both acts expressing disappointment and suggesting their dates were canceled because they don’t align with the Trump administration’s values. (The Gay Men’s Chorus are, well, gay, and were scheduled as part of the Pride Month lineup; Finn is a musical that celebrates diversity and can be interpreted as a metaphor for the LGBTQ+ experience, the producers speculated to The Washington Post.) However, Grenell and the center have insisted those cancellations were for financial and scheduling reasons. If the list of cancellation reasons was an attempt to show that the new center leadership isn’t imposing its politics on programming, the effect was dubious at best. The Kennedy Center seems to have become a new political battleground regardless.