With the line between ‘art’ and ‘entertainment’ blurred, Trump’s Kennedy Center seeks to give its audiences a bit of both.
W hat are the arts for? Or, rather, who are the arts for? At Trump’s Kennedy Center, the arts are for normie Americans. And that’s not a bad thing.
On Wednesday, Trump announced the 48th Kennedy Center Honorees. Trump said he was “98 percent involved” in selecting the honorees: George Strait, Michael Crawford, Sylvester Stallone, Gloria Gaynor, and KISS. The five selected all share one trait — they’re household names (for Trump’s generation, at least).
Ever since Trump took over as the Kennedy Center’s board chairman, the center’s programming has shifted away from niche, DEI-coded productions to popular hits. While Trump, in his signature style, has irked the left by calling the iconic venue the “TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER,” none of the programming for the upcoming, Trump-approved season is political.
Rather, the Kennedy Center was a wildly politicized place before Trump took over.
In July 2020, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, the center established its “Social Impact” program. The initiatives were designed to “increase engagement with Black artists and communities” and focused on cultivating “anti-racist behavior and a more socially equitable landscape.”
Oftentimes sponsored by nonprofits with progressive agendas, these experimental shows explored themes such as displacement, social justice, disability, mental health issues, LGBTQ+ themes, and racism.
Unsurprisingly, “Social Impact” productions were poorly attended. For the entire 2023 calendar year, all of the division’s programming drew only 65,000 attendees. (For comparison, the run of just one musical at the Kennedy Center brings in just as many, or more.)
This past spring, I attended one of the center’s last “Social Impact” events — a documentary screening of a Medicaid recipient in love. (The film’s thesis? The government needs to spend more on Medicaid.) More chairs were empty than filled in the “Justice Forum” theater where the movie was screened. After the film, a handful of audience members passed out flyers to others in attendance, advocating against cuts to Medicaid. The ragtag group of activists then attempted to start a protest in the courtyard, music and megaphones included.
To the best of my knowledge, that is what “politicization” of the arts looks like.
But the ship is turning around. Trump quickly dismantled the “Social Impact” initiatives after he took over, and most productions that focus on blatantly left-wing themes are being phased out.
After a dip in ticket sales during the height of media backlash to the regime change at the center, attendance has sprung back. Recently, the Kennedy Center finished a five-week run of Les Misérables which generated 135 percent of planned revenue, according to a press release, and welcomed over 85,000 patrons.
The 2025–26 season for theater continues the Broadway trend. It features beloved classics such as Monty Python’s Spamalot, Chicago, and Moulin Rouge!, along with a new musical, The Outsiders, which received the 2024 Tony Award for Best Musical. The National Symphony Orchestra’s upcoming season features an array of classical masterpieces from the likes of Brahms, Mahler, and Beethoven along with newly commissioned works by Philip Glass and Reena Esmail. The NSO also has some crowd-pleasers on its docket, including music from The Princess Bride and Marvel Studios’ Infinity Saga in concert.
From its inception, the Kennedy Center — originally termed the National Cultural Center before being remade into a JFK memorial — was designed to host educational and enriching shows for the American people.
The original plan for the National Cultural Center was much grander than the streamlined building we have today.
The center, designed by the luminary Edward Durell Stone, was initially drawn to be shaped like a large clamshell that extended nearly 200 hundred feet into the Potomac. With a massive wall of windows overlooking the river, the original plan made room for a “Grand Salon” — the central core of the complex — which could have sat 6,000 for dinner and held large balls and state visits. In the original vision, foreign dignitaries would arrive at the center by boat and step off onto a grand staircase that cascaded down over the water.
As one might guess, the original plan was deemed too expensive and too dangerous to engineer. Blueprints were scrapped, and the sleek, iconic rectangle was designed instead. Even so, American grandeur was an integral part of the founding vision of the Kennedy Center.
Trump’s calls to refurbish the center aren’t as political as they are practical. Given its proximity to the river, the building has battled water damage from its inception. Observant visitors can spot signs of such damage in performance halls’ ceilings, in the terrace overhang, and in the marble walls. (I do fear that the center is going to be renovated rather than restored, but time will tell.)
As a member of a symphonic choir in D.C. that performs with the NSO frequently, I have waded through the bowels of the Kennedy Center — and I can’t say it’s looking great down there. The halls beneath the main floor — chambers which contain studios, offices, rehearsal rooms, etc. — resemble a public high school’s under-funded theater department. There’s water damage on low-hanging ceiling tiles, scuffed linoleum floors, dingy cinderblock walls, and a lack of modern air conditioning.
While the administration has come under fire for “taking control” of the Kennedy Center, the venue’s originally enacted leadership structure remains largely the same. According to the “National Cultural Center Act” of 1958 — signed into law by President Eisenhower — the board was to be composed of select cabinet members, the librarian of Congress, local D.C. leaders, members of the House of Representatives, and general trustees appointed by the president, among others. An Advisory Committee of the Arts, “composed of such members as the President may designate, to serve at the pleasure of the President,” was tasked with making recommendations to the board regarding prospective cultural activities at the center.
As the center operates as a federally owned and operated showcase for the performing arts, it’s probably best that it caters to the American populace. (I’m pretty sure NYC has a corner on the “experimental theater” market regardless.) With the line between “art” and “entertainment” blurred, Trump’s Kennedy Center seeks to give its audiences a bit of both.