The boycott against Trump at the Kennedy Center

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a public memorial in honor of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, assassinated in 1963, but it is also an important cultural center in Washington, which hosts around two thousand theater, dance, music and entertainment performances every year. Among its best-known events are the Christmas shows, which however were canceled this year due to protests against President Donald Trump, who two weeks ago had the center’s name changed to include his as well.

Musician Chuck Redd, who has headlined the Christmas Eve show since 2006, canceled the event shortly after seeing the name change, while the popular New York jazz ensemble the Cookers canceled its New Year’s Eve concert. The statement did not specify whether the cancellation was related to the name change, but the drummer, Billy Hart, told the New York Times which “obviously” had an impact. Country singer Kristy Lee also canceled her concert scheduled for January 14, claiming that losing her integrity would cost her more than losing her salary. A similar reason to that given by Doug Varone’s dance company, which in turn canceled two shows scheduled for April.

Many artists have expressed concern about the cultural and institutional integrity of the center, whose official name is now “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts”, or Trump Kennedy Center, although it continues to be commonly called the Kennedy Center. But there had already been protest reactions after the first changes introduced by Trump, since the beginning of his second term.

It has been known for some time that Trump wanted to change the name of the center. Shortly after being re-elected in February, he replaced all members of the board of directors – traditionally from both parties – with people close to him, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, his chief of staff Susie Wiles and Usha Vance, wife of Vice President JD Vance. Then he appointed himself president and was chosen as executive director ad interim Richard Grenell, a former diplomat and supporter, with whom he says he shares a vision of what he called “the golden age of American art and culture.”

In the following weeks, actress Issa Rae canceled a show scheduled for March, citing betrayal of the institution’s historical values; singer Rhiannon Giddens said she didn’t feel like performing anymore, and so did the producers of Hamiltonnow a classic pop culture musical, had immediately decided to cancel the shows scheduled for March and April 2026: for the main producer, Jeffrey Seller, the Kennedy Center had to be protected from the influence of politics. Other people, however, had resigned from their artistic consultancy roles, such as the soprano Renée Fleming or the very famous author and television producer Shonda Rhimes, who was treasurer.

The protests intensified precisely with the approval by the board of directors of the new name of the center, which in itself was already of dubious validity. In fact, the name of the center was established by a federal law in 1964, and according to several experts, a vote by Congress would be necessary to change it. Joyce Beatty, a Democratic congresswoman from Ohio, filed a lawsuit challenging the new designation.

In any case, the center continued to host some well-known events, such as the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the award ceremony for the best American comedians, which in March was awarded to Conan O’Brien, and the Kennedy Center Honors, i.e. career awards given to influential people in the world of art, music and cinema, which Trump awarded to his supporters and donors such as Sylvester Stallone, Gloria Gaynor, the metal band Kiss.

However, things don’t seem to be going very well for the center: in October the Washington Post he had written that since September the scheduled shows had sold an average of 57 percent of tickets, compared to 93 percent in the autumn of 2024 and 80 the previous year. Now Grenell has threatened to sue Redd, the musician who canceled the Christmas Eve concert, and to ask him for a million dollars in damages.