In Which The Kennedy Center Stars As The Empty House In 'The House On The Hill'

Pretty soon there will be no one left who wants to perform there. Maybe the Osmonds.

"The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts" by Geoff Livingston is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Ah, the Kennedy Center. Longtime jewel for Washington DC. The premier performing arts space in America. Upon its boards have trod some of the world’s greatest performers. It has hosted production after production of some of the greatest plays ever written. Kings and queens have been entertained within its walls. It has enriched its surrounding community with classes and outreach, sowing seeds for future generations of artists.

And at the rate it has been shedding performers since the current president took it over, it might be emptier than Donald Trump’s brainpan by March. That’s really empty. Like a boundless void.

The latest group to leave the Kennedy Center is a big one: the Washington National Opera, which has made the Center its home almost since the moment the building opened in 1971. On Friday, the board of trustees approved a resolution to move all the opera’s performances elsewhere.

Why is the opera leaving? Its leaders told the Times about what you would expect: a “tumultuous year in which both groups have faced cancellations by artists, empty seats and the retrenchment of donors protesting Mr. Trump’s intervention.”

In other words, it was Trump, it is always Trump, he’s poison, everything he touches dies, no one wants anything to do with a Kennedy Center defiled by that boor and imbecile. Not performers, not audiences, not donors. Hell, at this point we’d be surprised if the Center’s head and least charming psychopath on any cell block, Ric Grenell, could get a pizza delivered.

For what it’s worth, Grenell on X on Friday claimed it was he who had initially asked the Opera to leave, and this was it complying. Which given that everyone in Trump World lies about as often and as easily as they blink, we don’t believe. But fine, every breakup needs one party yelling You didn’t break up with me, I broke up with you.

Ric Grenell Throws Tantrum Over Canceled Kennedy Center Concert, Other Acts Quickly Cancel As Well To Spite Him

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We’re not sure why Grenell thinks his asking the opera to leave makes him sound good, anyway. The Washington National Opera was one of the Center’s biggest partners. That’s a lot of programming going out the door that you need to replace, and we imagine a big hit in your ticket sales. And we know how much Grenell values ticket sales. Just ask Chuck Redd.

On the other hand, maybe Grenell already has some programming that will appeal to the alleged Real Americans this administration claims to treasure. Maybe he’s bringing in a monster truck show, or stage adaptations of Love Island and NBC’s entire Chicago lineup, or the sportsbook from a Vegas casino. Hell, maybe the Grand Ole Opry is relocating from Nashville.

The opera was just the biggest of the artists to cancel on the Center this week. On Tuesday, musician Béla Fleck cancelled three shows set for later in January:

“I have withdrawn from my upcoming performance with the NSO at The Kennedy Center. Performing there has become charged and political, at an institution where the focus should be on the music. I look forward to playing with the NSO another time in the future when we can together share and celebrate art.”

This prompted one of Grenell’s patented snarly responses on X, where he excoriated Fleck caving to “the woke mob who wants you to perform for only Lefties.” This was followed by his usual whine about how Republicans love the arts and want acts that aren’t political but just want to “perform for regardless of who they voted for.”

We think the two are often inextricable, but we’re not a Grenell-level idiot.

The day after Fleck’s announcement, a singer named Sonia De Los Santos also canceled an upcoming show. Santos is a Mexican-American who says she wants to uplift immigrant stories:

“Unfortunately, I do not feel that the current climate at this beloved venue represents a welcoming space for myself, my band, or our audience.”

Sure, ICE has been terrorizing your community, and many are terrified to go out in public, to say nothing of going to the Kennedy Center, but you don’t have to be political about it!

Grenell didn’t say anything about Santos, but one of his butthurt lickspittles, the PR director for the Kennedy Center, was performatively mad:

“This country was built on legal immigrants and as a first generation American, I find her statement highly offensive,” wrote [Roma] Daravi, 32, who is of Persian Jewish origin and served in the first Trump White House. “Refusing to engage with an institution open to everyone is, in fact, a step towards discrimination.”

Ma’am, if we may speak for the room: We’ll risk it.

To top off the Center’s week, a story appeared in the outlet Notus on Friday. It seems members of the National Symphony Orchestra are freaking out about their careers now that they play in a building with Trump’s name on it, a move that “has already damaged their orchestra’s reputation and finances.”

The NSO, with which Fleck was scheduled to perform, has been a mainstay of the Center for 40 years. Again, that is a lot of programming you would want to replace if it goes.

“Even the most far-right conservative, Trump-loving members of the orchestra who’ve loved the takeover are disgusted and terrified by the recent move of renaming the center,” one member of the National Symphony Orchestra, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, told NOTUS. “They just know inherently how difficult that’s gonna make every aspect of our lives by putting the man’s name on the building.”

Oh look, more nominees for this year’s Fell for It Again Award.

At the risk of beating a dead horse here, may we suggest to the MAGA-fied Kennedy Center that its leaders refrain from being such dicks? That’s why no one wants anything to do with you, it’s not your immoral politics. Well, it is your immoral politics. But also the part about being dicks. So long as you keep that up, we’re all just marking time until three years from now when can chisel the atrocity that is the name Donald Trump off your precious building.

[NYT / NPR / Daily Beast / NOTUS]

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