Can the Kennedy Center Survive Trump?
In early February, President Donald Trump announced he was going to fire the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in D.C. He himself would be chairman, and as he wrote on Truth Social, he would make the center “GREAT AGAIN.” But in the past few months––as Trump has appointed new members to the board and plenty of scheduled artists have boycotted the center—it’s become clear that the administration seems to have a pretty loose idea of what it wants art to look like.
The Kennedy Center: A Cultural Icon
The original impetus for this was the end of World War II. President Eisenhower wanted to lift the country’s spirits and bring them into a peacetime mentality and to promulgate the soft power of the country through arts and culture. And then after President Kennedy was assassinated, this plan that was on the back burner for having a cultural institution fused with a desire to honor President Kennedy and his own personal commitment to the arts. And so the Kennedy Center was born, and it was a trifecta. It was the cultural hub that Eisenhower envisioned, it was a performing arts stage, and it was a living memorial to President Kennedy.
A Trump vs. Kennedy Center Narrative
How did Donald Trump think about the Kennedy Center during his first term? The buzzy thing that happened in the Trump vs. Kennedy Center narrative in the first term was that some of the artists who had been awarded this very prestigious prize, the Kennedy Center Honors, threatened to boycott the ceremony if Trump attended. And this was right after Charlottesville. So it’s not just like they were being political for no reason, something awful had just happened.
The New Leadership: A Challenging Approach
Trump said, “OK, fine. I’ll let you have your ceremony in peace. And also, I’m not gonna have a reception at the White House for any of the artists who have received this award.” And starting then, he has never done anything for the Kennedy Center Honors. Which was kind of a splashy news story but didn’t affect the operations of the Kennedy Center much.
The new leadership at the center is led by Richard LeFrak, a businessman and donor to the arts. Trump appointed him as the Chairman of the Board. The previous leadership was known for its commitment to artistic programming, but it seems that this approach may not align with Trump's vision for the Kennedy Center.
One thing that has been pretty striking about the new leadership is that they don’t really have a coherent vision for what the art of the Kennedy Center is actually going to be. So we have a quote from Richard LeFrak saying there will be a great big celebration of Christ at Christmas. And we have Trump saying more Broadway shows. But beyond that, I haven’t really been able to get a good sense of what they want.
The Financial Reality
Trump and some of the officials he’s put in charge have basically said the Kennedy Center is in financial disarray. What’s the reality of its financial situation? From what I could tell, it was flourishing. It had money, and it was doing what it was supposed to be doing pre-Trump.
The Consequences
That doesn’t necessarily mean that it was always making more money than it spent on its programming. But because its sources of revenue were not just box office, but were also gifts and donations, it was still overall in the black. It seems like what the new leadership at the Kennedy Center is trying to convey to the public is: “In the past, the Kennedy Center was putting on shows that didn’t make money. And we’re gonna stop that because that was bad business.”
I think what the previous leadership was saying is it’s actually good business, because even if we don’t make money on these more experimental or more niche shows, we are fulfilling the mission of the center, which is to represent the diversity of American culture.
The Impact on Artists and Donors
Ticket sales are down now, though, right? That’s a whole different part of the picture, which is no matter how well or badly the center was doing before Trump, the Trump anti-Midas touch is in operation here, and now everything is worse.
Not only are ticket sales down, but donations have been paused, artists are pulling out. All of the spigots for money have slowed or have been turned off. This is having a negative impact on the arts community, which relies heavily on the Kennedy Center for support and funding.
A Vision for the Future
I spoke with Mary Helen Bowers, a ballet dancer who’s quite conservative and has been on the Kennedy Center board since the end of Trump’s first term. Did she have a vision for what the Kennedy Center programming would look like going forward? She seemed very optimistic.
She said that the world’s greatest businessman is stepping in to right the ship of the Kennedy Center, and so we’re all going to be blessed with great art in the future. But one thing that has been pretty striking about the new leadership is that they don’t really have a coherent vision for what the art of the Kennedy Center is actually going to be.