Donald and Melania Trump are the anti-Jack and Jackie Kennedy. Melania destroyed the Rose Garden and Donald told Laura Ingraham of plans to continue to do so with pavement, plus as current self-appointed Chair of the Kennedy Center, Trump has managed to bring the storied performing arts center to a screeching halt. The new slate of shows is traditionally announced for the coming season by the second week in March. That date has come and gone. So now what happens?
“We’re gonna fix that,” the president said upon learning that the Kennedy Center would have had to pay the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees in order to have board member Lee Greenwood sing at the meeting. “They wanted $30,000 to move a piano,” Trump claimed.
We have joked here about Lee Greenwood and Lara Trump performing at the Kennedy Center, but there you have it. Greenwood was slated to sing at a board meeting.
And yet, none of these obstacles prevent the president of the United States from assuming “Cats” will be onstage at the Kennedy Center next year, as if he has the power to summon Mr. Mistoffelees and Rum Tum Tugger through sheer will.
Since Feb. 7, when Trump announced plans to appoint himself America’s arts impresario in chief, he has fired roughly two dozen board members appointed by President Joe Biden, had the remaining trustees elect a new president of the board and dismissed Kennedy Center leader Deborah Rutter, who had helmed the institution for 11 years.
Life at the center has been a tumultuous free fall ever since, with a series of cancellations and missed deadlines. The second week of March, when the Kennedy Center typically announces programming for the next season, has come and gone. Across Washington, venues like The Anthem and Shakespeare Theatre Company are fielding calls from artists and organizations looking for somewhere else to perform. Most notably, the producers and creators of the musical theater juggernaut “Hamilton” announced they were canceling a two-month run, which most likely have generated more money than any other show in the 2025-26 Kennedy Center season.
Trump says, “I never liked Hamilton much,” which presumes that he has seen it, which is presuming too much. Nobody knows where this situation goes next. But the New Yorker has done a satirical spin on it, and we might as well laugh to keep from crying, right?
April 1 — A. R. Gurney’s “Love Letters,” with Lauren Boebert and Kid Rock
April 3 — Vocal group Up with Goebbels
April 4-5 — 3-D Ghost-Gun Show
April 6-7 — (Musical workshop) Sing! Sing! Sing! On Your Federal Co-Workers!
April 12-13 — Crypto, Change-O: A Magical Illusion Spectacular
April 15-16 — Clarence Thomas R.V./Camper Show
April 17 — An Evening with Stephen Miller (formerly “Stephen Miller and Friends”)
April 18-19 — CPAC Celebrity Pickleball Tourney
April 21 — Big Balls: The TED Talk
April 22 — Game-Show Night! (“Alt-Fact Jeopardy!” / “Win Jill Stein’s Money” / “Kennedy Family Feud”)
April 24-25 — Joey Critters Reptile Revue
April 26-May 3 — Con Con
May 4 — Free and Fair Audience-Votes Talent-Show Night (Dancing with the Tsars)
May 5-10 — Pete Hegseth’s Five-Day Advanced Mixology Seminar (SOLD OUT)
May 11-13 — Gay-Conversion Band Camp
May 15 — (One night only!) Ted Nugent reunites with himself
May 16-17 — Lock, Bump Stock & Barrel (conservative improv group)
May 18-22 — All-Nordic adaptation of “The Wiz”
(Summer Mondays Are Fun Days at the K Center!)
1st Monday of the month — Woke, woke-related, and woke-adjacent tattoo removal
2nd Monday — Vax Populi! Exchange your clean syringe for clean urine
3rd Monday — FEMA yard sale
Last Monday — Book BBQ
June 3-7 — ICE Capades: An evening of hilarious bodycam bloopers of bungled busts and deportation hiccups
June 10 — Joe Rogan Stunt-Double/Human-Shield Contest (all entrants must be over 54 and under 5’4″)
June 11 — Joe Rogan “Bum Fights” (over $35 in prize money!)
June 13—Night of 100 Caving Journalists!
June 14 — (Flag Day) Official reopening! Two Oath Keepers (T.B.A.) with reverse drill bits take name off front of building
June 17-July 3 — “Shen Yun” (ticket tariff lifted)
July 4 — All-American Fourth of July Musical Salute to the Kremlin
July 5 — Roseanne Sings Sondheim (TENTATIVE)
July 8-11 — (Exclusive opening) Exhibit of Brass Calf made from returned Kennedy Center Honors medals
July 14-16 — “Honey, Where Are My Pants?”: The Bruce Jenner Anti-Trans Musical (TENTATiVE)
July 18-19 — “Come F.A.A. Away” (a new play) (TENTATIVE)
July 23-24 — H. R. Frackenstuff (fossil-fuel-based marionettes)
August 5-9, 12-16 — Red Man Group
August 19-24 — Sylvester Stallone, Jon Voight in “Doomsday Clock Cowboy” (a new play)
August 29-30 — Earth, Wind, Fire, Drought & Mudslides
Labor Day Weekend — Hotel workers’ trade union sponsors the musical reboot “Visa Las Vegas”
We laugh, but Trump would probably find a CPAC pickleball tournament to be a great thing. It’s certainly up his alley. Will Trump actually shutter the most venerated national art center in the country? At this point, on this day, it certainly looks that way. Stay tuned. Some weak tea version of the traditional Kennedy Center slate may emerge, but I don’t think so. The artists are going to hold their ground, and the unions absolutely will hold theirs. Trump has zero chance of getting scab labor to replace IATSE stage hands. That will not happen.
So the Kennedy Center may indeed stand dark during the next four years, a symbol of the darkness in our country.
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Zoomers, if you have any spare change, we are banking it for the rainy days upon us. Traffic has been down for five months now as the country deals with generalized political depression. I know things will improve in time, but for now we’re weathering the storm. Ursula
It’s all so predictably petty.
It’s not just getting what they want, it’s more important that ‘the others’ don’t get what they want.
They’d rather everyone has nothing than someone from ‘the other side’ has anything.
What a sad, pathetic, psychotic, joyless, existence they live.
Like Trump, they can’t smile, only sneer.
What??? No ‘Springtime for Hitler in Germany? Damn!
Keep in mind the fact Lee Greenwood is a fucking Chicken Hawk. Someone who talks up the military and claims if they’d really needed him he would have stepped up. Bullshit. Lots of guys worked the draft system during the 1960s to avoid service and especially the prospect of winding up in Vietnam. I made my peace long ago with those who were upfront about taking advantage of deferments AND admitting they did so because they didn’t believe our involvement with Vietnam was justified/in the national interest. People will debate that forever but the important point is that some were honest about not wanting to risk being sent to Vietnam and working the deferment system (and local draft boards before the lottery) and those who like to pretend they’d have “gladly” gone and fought if called up.
Greenwood had children which allowed him to claim what was called a family hardship deferment. When questions started to be raised decades later after his “Proud to be an American” bullshit song (He did NOT stand up when he could have to ‘defend her’) he accurately pointed out a lot of people took advantage of that particular deferment. Okay. But it was where he’d add (and has kept getting away with doing so) that had it really come down to brass tacks he’d have gladly served. Bullshit.
Growing up his mom was pissed at his dad for going off to fight in WWII. In his mid twenties as the controversy over Vietnam raged plenty of young men didn’t want to wind up over there. Again, that was their choice to work the system to avoid it if they could. Joining the Guard/Reserves was the surest ticket NOT to wind up in Vietnam (long story about why – but the few who did were pilots in the Air Guard – as in baby Bush who went AWOL as soon as he could. He not only wanted no part of combat, he didn’t even want the risk of training stateside which back then carried a fair amount of danger as the jets of the era weren’t as reliable as they have become).
Greenwood IS a fucking draft dodger.
I doubt Trump has ever seen a play, musical,, ballet, concert ,symphony performance or opera in his life. Probably not many movies either. In all those cases the audience’s attention is focused on the performance, not on him,,and he must be the center of attention at all times.
Worry not. Most country music stars are Trump.fans,,with rare exceptions. It will be 4 years of the Country Music Awards-‘but the Chicks,,Willie Nelson and any country performer not singing Dementia Donnie’s praises,possibly literally, will be banned.
I’d sure rather see it dark than showing the kind of “entertainment” MAGA would like.