Kennedy Center Still In Sh*tter
The performing arts space taken over by MAGA is REALLY not drawing crowds.
Once in a while, we like to check in on the Kennedy Center, the venerable performing arts facility in our nation’s capital where 30 years ago we saw Ian McKellen play Richard III. In a neat twist, the production was set in Nazi-era Germany to play up the parallels between Richard and 20th century fascists and dictators. Such a staging would probably not be welcome today at today’s Kennedy Center now that it has been taken over by Donald Trump and Richard Grenell, the obeisant bootlicker Trump put in charge of turning the place into MAGA Happy Land. The critique of fascism would hit too close to home.
Or maybe it wouldn’t, because Trump and Grenell are definitely the types who don’t understand when art is subtly rebuking them. They would probably wander around telling everyone to pay attention to the similarities between George Soros or Barack Obama and Richard III, who famously wanted nothing more than to give the Lancastrians health insurance.
Anyway, back in June we wrote about how the Center’s ticket sales for the upcoming performance season were down by one-third. We said at the time that we bet we could check back in after another month and sales would not be much better. Now here we are almost five months later, and to the surprise of absolutely none of us, the Center’s ticket sales have shot past pathetic and made a beeline for abysmal.
The Washington Post ran an analysis of ticket sales from both this and past years. One finding was that sales are at the lowest point they have been since the pandemic. Because for a minute there, pre-2024 election, it looked as if things were bouncing back:
Since early September, 43 percent of tickets remained unsold for the typical production. That means that, at most, 57 percent of tickets were sold for the typical production — and some tickets may have been “comps,” which are given away, often to staff members or the press. That compares with 93 percent sold or comped in fall 2024 and 80 percent in fall 2023.
Are you telling us that a production of The Sound of Music this past fall couldn’t draw all those MAGA crowds who had supposedly not been served by the Center’s past woke management? Although now that we think about it, why would MAGA want to sit through a show where the Nazis are the bad guys.
There are, as the Post notes, quite a few potential reasons why sales are down. The National Guard presence in Washington has resulted in a significant drop in tourism. Musical theaters on Broadway have been struggling recently, and maybe those struggles are contagious.
Or possibly people are absolutely terrified of Trump’s remodeling the Kennedy and don’t want to be exposed to his hideous taste? And who could blame them. Seriously, what is that bathroom he was bragging about on Friday? It looks like something Cleopatra dreamed up when she was stoned on cactus juice.
Trump himself swears the Kennedy Center remodel is going great:
Amazing. SNAP benefits expire today, everyone’s health insurance is about to shoot into the stratosphere price-wise — farther into the stratosphere, we mean — the president is talking about blowing up a couple of nuclear warheads to make sure they are working, and our military might be gearing up to bomb Venezuela any minute. All this while Herr Trump spends his time on either interior design projects or whining about how the current government shutdown is all the fault of the mean Democrats.
Taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for Donald Trump to carry out his fantasies of being the best darn Broadway set designer alive. Mostly because some of us might soon need to eat our feet.
Above all, one current Kennedy Center employee told the Post, the downturn feels “tied to the new regime’s leadership shift and the broader political climate,” adding:
“I’ve heard from ticket buyers who say they’re choosing not to attend because of what the Kennedy Center now represents. The brand itself has become polarizing, which is unprecedented in my experience.”
Unprecedented, yes, but you have to remember one maxim of this era that is always in play no matter the issue, and that is that Donald Trump fucks up everything he touches.
The brand has not made itself polarizing. Trump and Grenell did that when they stomped in earlier this year, throwing around mindless blather about getting rid of “woke” programming, sneering about the elites not bringing in shows Real Americans want to see. (Such as, uh, The Sound of Music, we guess?) There was the obligatory horse-hockey about previous management errors that allegedly left the Center broke. Grenell allegedly made a criminal referral for fraud to the Justice Department over the bookkeeping. Though that means nothing, these guys think sneezing in Trump’s vicinity is a treasonous effort by the Left to give him pneumonia.
PREVIOUSLY
Then there was the immediate effort to rename parts of the Center after various Trumps. Republicans in the House have proposals to rename the Kennedy’s opera house after first lady Melon Trump and the entire place after Donald. The president supposedly talked about putting up a statue of himself in the main building, presumably where the Lego statue of John F. Kennedy is now.
It is no wonder arts patrons are staying away. And they aren’t coming back while Donald Trump is in office.
Maybe if Grenell wants to attract more of the public, he should stage a monster truck rally.
[WashPost]
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"faster than anticipated, one of my trademarks."
Yes, no one turns things to shit faster than The Felon.
Ucchh. Fam, I fucked up at work (my second job). I got the scheduling wrong on something, and unless a miracle happens, it's a big deal. I might get fired. Send tots & pears.